Texas Freemasonry

Yes

PHA Grand Lodge

The Grand Lodge of Texas is recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England and is in fraternal amity with the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas.

The Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas was organized at Houston on December 20, 1837, when representatives of Holland Lodge No. 36, Milam Lodge No. 40, and McFarland Lodge No. 41 convened. Anson Jones, physician, diplomat, and last President of the Republic, was elected the first Grand Master. The grand lodge was formally constituted on April 16, 1838, the date the historian James D. Carter established as its founding, and 1838 stands as the founding year of record.

Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas, was a Mason. Sam Houston, President of the Republic and later Texas Senator and Governor, was a member of Holland Lodge No. 36, which became Holland Lodge No. 1 under the Texas grand lodge and is still active today. William Barret Travis, who died at the Alamo, was a Mason. James Bowie and David Crockett, also at the Alamo, are generally believed to have been Masons, though the documentation is incomplete.

The Masonic connections to the founding of Texas gave the grand lodge a distinctive civic character that persisted through the nineteenth century. Texas Freemasonry was tightly woven into the political and community life of a young state still building its institutions. Lodges formed rapidly across the Republic and then across the state, serving the same function they had on other American frontiers: providing structured fellowship and mutual obligation in communities that had little other institutional infrastructure.

The Civil War disrupted Texas Masonry as it disrupted the rest of Southern institutional life, but the grand lodge reconstituted itself through Reconstruction and expanded substantially in the Gilded Age as the Texas economy diversified from ranching into farming, railroads, and eventually oil. The discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901 and the subsequent development of the Texas petroleum industry brought new prosperity and population growth that strengthened Masonic membership across the state.

The Grand Lodge of Texas is headquartered in Waco, where its building houses extensive archives and the Grand Lodge Library and Museum, one of the more substantial Masonic archival collections in the American South. The Grand Lodge of Texas formally recognized the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas in 2007, establishing mutual recognition and reciprocal visitation rights. Today the grand lodge serves lodges across the state, with active lodge communities in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, and cities and towns throughout Texas.

The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas is recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England and is in fraternal amity with the Grand Lodge of Texas, A.F. & A.M.

The grand lodge was organized at Brenham, Texas, in August 1875. Acting under the authority of the Prince Hall grand lodge in Kansas, Norris Wright Cuney and Richard Allen issued a call for delegates to convene on August 19, and the convention completed its organization the following day. Mount Bonnell Lodge No. 2, Magnolia Lodge No. 24, and Galveston Lodge No. 25 sent representatives. Richard Allen was elected president of the convention, and Norris Wright Cuney became the first Grand Master of Prince Hall Masonry in Texas.

The founding came ten years after the end of the Civil War, during the period that saw the rapid organization of Black civic institutions across the former Confederacy. Texas had one of the largest Black populations in the South, and Prince Hall lodges spread across the state as Black Texans built the institutional infrastructure that emancipation made possible. The grand lodge has been a central institution of Black civic life in Texas ever since, with long-established presences in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Galveston. Its headquarters are in Fort Worth.

Prince Hall Freemasonry traces its lineage to African Lodge No. 459, warranted by the Grand Lodge of England in 1784 after Prince Hall, a free Black Bostonian, and fourteen other free Black men were initiated into Masonry through an Irish military lodge in Boston in 1775. The lodge was erected into the African Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1791, and in 1827 it declared its independence from England, establishing the autonomous tradition that Prince Hall grand lodges across the United States trace their authority to today. The Texas grand lodge traces its own descent through the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

The Grand Lodge of Texas formally recognized the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas in 2007, establishing mutual recognition between the two bodies and extending to the members of each the full rights of a Master Mason in the other’s lodges. Full intervisitation followed in 2014. This recognition was part of the broader wave of mainstream and Prince Hall recognitions that reshaped American Masonic relations from the late 1980s onward. The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas is today one of the largest Prince Hall jurisdictions in the United States, and both grand lodges are confirmed as regular by the United Grand Lodge of England.

Holland Lodge No. 1 in Houston, formerly Holland Lodge No. 36 under the Louisiana grand lodge and the lodge where Sam Houston held membership, is among the most historically significant Masonic lodges in the American South. The lodge's records connect directly to the Texas Revolution, and it has operated continuously since its charter in the Republic period. Houston was also the city where the founding grand lodge convention was held in December 1837, which gives it particular resonance for Masons interested in Texas Masonic origins.

The Grand Lodge of Texas building in Waco houses the Grand Lodge of Texas Library and Museum, one of the most substantial Masonic research collections in the American South. The archives hold materials from the Republic of Texas period, including records of the founding lodges, and are a primary resource for researchers studying Texas Masonic history. The building itself is a significant Masonic landmark on the Waco streetscape.

The Wilbert M. Curtis Texas Prince Hall Library and Museum, maintained by the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas, holds the documentary record of Prince Hall Masonry in the state and is the counterpart research collection to the grand lodge library in Waco. Brenham, where the Prince Hall grand lodge was organized in August 1875, preserves a memorial honoring Norris Wright Cuney and marking the founding. Both are worth the detour for any Mason studying the full Masonic history of Texas rather than half of it.

San Felipe de Austin, the original capital of Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony and a site closely associated with the beginning of the Texas independence movement, preserves historic connections to the earliest Texas Masonic history, as Austin and many of the colonists who gathered there were Masons. The Scottish Rite hospital for children in Dallas, while an appendant body institution rather than a grand lodge facility, is one of the most significant Masonic charitable institutions in the country.

Visiting Masons should arrange lodge visits in advance through the Grand Lodge of Texas at grandlodgeoftexas.org, or through the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas at mwphglotx.org. Texas lodges in both jurisdictions observe a strong tradition of welcoming visiting Brothers from recognized jurisdictions.

The Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction is active across Texas with major Valleys in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Galveston, Waco, and other cities — one of the most extensive Scottish Rite presences in the jurisdiction. The Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, supported by the Scottish Rite Valleys of Texas, has provided free specialized pediatric orthopedic care since 1921 and is among the most significant expressions of Masonic charitable commitment in the country.

Shriners International maintains a substantial presence across Texas through Arabia Shrine in Houston, Hella Shrine in Dallas, Khiva Shrine in Amarillo, and other Shrine centers, supporting the Shriners Children's hospital network statewide.

York Rite bodies — Chapters of Royal Arch Masons, Councils of Cryptic Masons, and Commanderies of Knights Templar — operate extensively across the state, with bodies in dozens of Texas cities. The York Rite tradition in Texas carries roots reaching to the republic era, when the fraternity was helping build the institutions of an independent nation before statehood.

The Order of the Eastern Star, DeMolay International, and Job's Daughters International have active chapters across Texas, with particularly strong Eastern Star and DeMolay traditions rooted in the state's nineteenth-century Masonic culture.

United Grand Lodge of England, Foreign Grand Lodges — recognition status of the Grand Lodge of Texas and the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas.

Grand Lodge of Texas, A.F. & A.M. — official site; founding history, Holland Lodge No. 36, Anson Jones as first Grand Master, Sam Houston’s membership, and the Waco library and museum.

Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas, Grand Lodge History — official account of the Brenham convention of August 19, 1875, the delegate lodges, and the election of Richard Allen as convention president.

Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas — official site; Fort Worth headquarters, the Wilbert M. Curtis Library and Museum, and Norris Wright Cuney as the first Grand Master of Prince Hall Masonry in Texas.

Freemason Information, Texas mutual recognition — April 23, 2007 mutual recognition compact; December 6, 2014 intervisitation approval.

Dallas Freemasonry, Texas Freemason history — founding convention narrative; lodge memberships of Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and Houston; April 16, 1838 as the formal constitution date per historian James D. Carter.

Scottish Rite for Children — current name and 1921 founding confirmed.