Masonic History
This Week in Masonic History
A weekly Johnson City Lodge feature pairing Masonic history with sourced landmarks, images, citations, and archive entries.
Weekly Features
August 31 to September 6, 2026
The Man Who Asked Permission: Stephen F. Austin at Brazoria
On September 5, 1836, Texas elected its first president and gave Stephen F. Austin 587 votes — third place, behind Sam Houston and Henry Smith. A year earlier, in the town of Brazoria, Austin had risen at a public dinner and sanctioned the Consultation that made such a vote possible. Six months before that, in the same town, six Masons who could not get a charter out of Mexico had quietly gone to Louisiana for one. A week about the difference between asking permission and constituting yourself — and about a man who spent his life doing the first and died a year after finally doing the second.
August 24 to August 30, 2026
The Record We Keep: Hardin R. Runnels
Hardin Richard Runnels was born on August 30, 1820, and remains the only person who ever defeated Sam Houston at the polls. The Grand Lodge of Texas printed its own minutes for January 1852, and they place him in the room as the representative of Boston Lodge No. 69 — while the record of the same life holds thirty-nine enslaved people and a campaign to reopen the African slave trade. A week for keeping both halves of the book.
August 17 to August 23, 2026
The Honest Ledger: Elisha M. Pease
Just past this week's edge falls the death of Elisha Marshall Pease — August 26, 1883 — the Connecticut clerk who kept the Republic of Texas's books, signed the 1854 school law that first funded Texas public education, and governed a state whose political generation was Masonic to its core. His own lodge membership rests on tradition; his ledger does not.
August 10 to August 16, 2026
The Cultivated Mind: Mirabeau B. Lamar
This week holds the birthday of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar — August 16, 1798 — poet, cavalry commander at San Jacinto, second president of the Republic of Texas, and the man Texas calls the Father of Texas Education, whose name stands in the member ledger of Harmony Lodge No. 6 at Galveston and whose grave lies in the old Masonic cemetery at Richmond.
August 3 to August 9, 2026
The Young Colonel: William Barret Travis
This week holds the birthday of William Barret Travis — August 9, 1809, by his family's Bible, though tradition long kept August 1 — the South Carolina-born, Alabama-raised lawyer, editor, and Mason of Alabama Lodge No. 3 who, at twenty-six, commanded the Alamo and addressed the most famous letter in Texas history to the people of Texas and all Americans in the world.
July 27 to August 2, 2026
The Stonemason's Son: Thomas J. Rusk
This week marks the death of Thomas J. Rusk on July 29, 1857 — the stonemason's son who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, fought at San Jacinto, commanded the army, presided over annexation, and helped found the Grand Lodge of Texas. He died holding the second-highest office in the United States Senate, and Texas has never fully reckoned with how much of its framework one man quietly built.
July 20 to July 26, 2026
Sam Houston's Long Road to Huntsville
This week marks the death of Sam Houston on July 26, 1863 — the Raven of the Cherokee, the victor of San Jacinto, the president who presided over the founding of the Grand Lodge of Texas, and the governor who gave up power twice in one week rather than break an oath. A look at the whole of an incredible, contradictory man, and how Masonic memory holds him.
July 13 to July 19, 2026
Oak Cliff Lodge and the Memory Stored in Buildings
This week looks at Oak Cliff Lodge No. 705 and its Dallas temple building, a reminder that Masonic history is also carried by architecture, neighborhoods, markers, and reuse.
July 6 to July 12, 2026
Oran M. Roberts and the Work of Preserving Texas Memory
This week follows Oran M. Roberts, a jurist, governor, teacher, and historical writer whose life shows how Texas memory was preserved through courts, classrooms, and civic institutions.
June 29 to July 5, 2026
S. W. T. Lanham and Public Life After the Frontier
Born on July 4, S. W. T. Lanham carried Texas public life from the postwar frontier into Congress, the governor's office, and the civic institutions of Weatherford.
June 22 to June 28, 2026
The First Grand Lodge Takes Shape
This week follows the 1717 meeting at the Goose and Gridiron, where four London lodges formed the first Grand Lodge and gave modern regular Masonry one of its defining patterns.
June 15 to June 21, 2026
Samuel May Williams Reaches Texas
This week follows Samuel May Williams from his arrival in Mexican Texas to his place in the civic, financial, and fraternal world that helped shape the Republic.