Which US Presidents Were Freemasons?

Yes, George Washington was a Freemason, and no American Mason is better known. He was initiated on November 4, 1752, in Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 in Virginia, when he was twenty years old, and was raised to the degree of Master Mason on August 4, 1753. He later served as the first Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22, which still carries his name.

His Masonry was public and deliberate. When he took the first presidential oath of office in 1789, the Bible used was borrowed from St. John’s Lodge No. 1 in New York. In 1793 he laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in a full Masonic ceremony, wearing a Masonic apron. For Freemasons in the Americas, Washington remains the defining figure of the Craft’s place in the nation’s founding.

Fourteen presidents were raised as Master Masons. They are listed here in order, followed by Lyndon Johnson, who took only the first degree.

Fifteen presidents held verified membership, and fourteen were raised as Master Masons. Two of them went well beyond ordinary membership and led their state grand lodges as Grand Master.

Several presidents were active well past initiation, including Garfield, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt. The most recent president with undisputed active membership was Gerald Ford, raised in 1951.

Was Benjamin Franklin a Freemason? Yes, and he was among the most prominent Masons of the founding era. Franklin served as Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734, printed the first Masonic book in America that same year, and in Paris presided over the initiation of Voltaire. Paul Revere served as Grand Master of Massachusetts. Along with Washington and Monroe, these men gave Freemasonry a real presence in the Revolutionary generation.

That presence is often exaggerated. Freemasonry was influential among the founders, but it was not universal, and many of the most famous names left no lodge record at all. The honest picture is a real and traceable Masonic thread through the founding, not the secret hand of legend.

Popular lists routinely name founders and presidents who were never Masons. The verified record does not support them, and getting this right matters as much as the list itself.

Abraham Lincoln is the most frequent error. He petitioned Tyrian Lodge in Springfield, Illinois, then withdrew before initiation to avoid the appearance of political motive. He was never a Mason. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton are likewise absent from the lodge records, despite appearing on countless lists.

Two cases call for a careful word. Ronald Reagan received an honorary distinction from the Scottish Rite in 1988 but was never initiated in a lodge, so he is not counted among the member-presidents. Lyndon Johnson took only the first degree and never advanced. Both are members in name only by comparison to the fourteen who were raised.