| What are Masons
and why do they have "secrets?" You
can read all about it in the Bible because Masonry began among what we might call
the contractors who built King Solomon's Temple, with the King himself in charge.
This is what one would call Operative Freemasonry, which means that only a few
men knew the mathematics necessary to construct the temple and they guarded the
information and looked after each other's well being to perpetuate their monopoly. Much
later, in England, Operative Masonry passed into Speculative Masonry, meaning
that its members no longer necessarily worked in the building trades but still
used the same principles for individual and societal improvement. Now they built
"temples" with their lives. Scottish
Rite and York Rite Masonry developed separately in England. York Rite Masonry
crossed the Atlantic to England's colonies, then accompanied westering Americans
across the continent. Many
Anglos who reached Texas early in the 19th century were Masons but they had no
lodge to attend. They asked the Grand Lodge of Louisiana for help, and in 1836
Louisiana's Grand Master, John Henry Holland, issued charters for three new lodges
in Texas: Holland Lodge No. 36 organized in Houston in January 1837; Milam Lodge
No. 40 began in Nacogdoches the following August; and McFarland Lodge No. 41 was
established in San Augustine. Ideas
of independence predominated in Texas in the mid-1830s, so within a year a movement
began to establish a Grand Lodge of Texas. Since the government of Texas headquartered
in Houston where prominent officials and Masons such as Sam Houston and Anson
Jones were present, Holland lodge invited representatives from Milam Lodge in
Nacogdoches and McFarland Lodge in San Augustine to send delegates to discuss
the organization of a Grand Lodge of Texas.
Milam Lodge sent Adolphus Sterne, Isaac Burton, Thomas J. Rusk, Charles Taylor,
and Kelsey Douglass to the meeting. Holland Lodge was represented by Houston,
Jones, Jefferson Wright, and Thomas Western. McFarland Lodge did not send a delegate
but authorized Sterne to act on its behalf. The
delegates created the Grand Lodge of Texas and selected Jones as its first Grand
Master and Sterne as Deputy Grand Master. For a while the lodges in Nacogdoches
and San Augustine continued to labor under their charter from Louisiana, but the
desire to develop Texas proved strong enough by 1839 that both lodges transferred
their allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Texas. Ironically,
John Henry Holland, who had chartered them in behalf of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana,
moved to Nacogdoches in 1839 and the next year was elected Worshipful Master of
Milam Lodge No. 2.
SEPTEMBER 24-30, 2000
Published by permission.
(Archie P. McDonald is Director of the East Texas Historical
Association and author or editor of more than 20 books on Texas)
East
Texas Towns
| 
