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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.
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