According to Boyden, "At the cornerstone laying of the Baltimore Temple some one suggested that a chair be brought to the reviewing platform for him. Brother Johnson refused it, saying: 'We all meet on the level. Garfield, the nation's 20th president, was made a Mason in in Columbus, Ohio. McKinley, the nation's 25th president, was made a Mason in in Winchester, Virginia. Todd E. Creason, founder of the Midnight Freemasons blog, wrote this about the understated McKinley:.
Roosevelt, the 26th president, was made a Freemason in New York in He was known for his virtue and refusal to use his status as a Mason for political gain. Wrote Roosevelt:. Taft, the 27th president, was made a Mason in , just before becoming president. He was made a Mason "at sight" by the grand master of Ohio, meaning he did not have to earn his acceptance into the lodge like most others do.
Harding, the 29th president, first sought acceptance into the Masonic brotherhood in but was initially "blackballed.
Tester of Vermont. Roosevelt, the 32nd president, was a 32nd Degree Mason. Truman, the 33rd president, was grand master and 33rd degree Mason. Ford, the 38th president, is the most recent to have been a Mason. He began with the fraternity in No president since Ford has been a Freemason.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Subscriber Account active since. It's a statistic that sounds straight out of a conspiracy theorist's fever dream or "National Treasure," at the very least.
Masonic lodges essentially function as combination social clubs, secret societies, and charitable organizations. The fraternal organization has been around since at least the s, likely arising from early modern organizations of stonemasons. Masons themselves trace their roots back to the construction of King Solomon's temple in biblical times.
Today, there are several offshoots of Freemasonry, but the branch that most people would recognize requires that members be men and profess belief in the existence of a deity. Conversations about politics and religion are banned, and a sacred text must be displayed in each lodge. Candidates must get through three degrees of the craft in order to become Freemasons. First, they are "initiated" as apprentices, then "passed" to the level of fellowcraft, and finally "raised" as full Masons if the members of the lodge vote them in.
Since the society is ostensibly mysterious and said to partake in ancient rituals, public perceptions about Masons tend to range from fascination to fear. In fact, the first ever third party in US political history ran on the platform of taking down Freemasonry. Recently, a statue of prominent Freemason — and Confederate general — Albert Pike was toppled and set on fire by protesters on Juneteenth. To the credit of the Freemasons, they joined me in wanting the statue to be taken down and I give them all due credit to that," Congresswoman Holmes Norton told WUSA 9.
So, what drew a grand total of 14 chief executives 15 if you count LBJ, who was initiated but never raised to become Masons? That's right.
The first president of the US also happened to be the nation's first Masonic president. In Ron Chernow's " Washington: A Life ," he notes that the future president may have been attracted to the Masonic Order's adherence to Enlightenment ideals.
Washington had lost his older brother Lawrence to tuberculosis only a few months earlier, effectively becoming head of the household.
Washington stayed in touch with his Masonic brothers for the rest of his life. Masonic influences came into play at Washington's first inauguration. During the ceremony, he swore his oath on a Bible from St. John's Masonic Lodge No. The first president's Masonic ties followed him his entire life — and beyond. There's even a George Washington Masonic National Memorial , which was dedicated in and finally completed in At that time he was a year-old student at the College of William and Mary, and heavily involved in anti-Crown activities on campus.
Over the course of those four years, the future fifth president would drop out of college to fight in the Revolution, nearly die after getting shot during the Battle of Trenton, and then return to William and Mary to study law. That's because the first ever third party in US politics formed as part of a backlash against the Freemasons. As Slate reported , the seeds for the Anti-Masonic Party were first sown in , when Masons were implicated in the still unsolved kidnapping of a New York man who threatened to reveal their secret rites.
The political party opposed what it perceived as a sinister, elitist, and anti-democratic secret society. The Anti-Masonic Party found a natural foe in Jackson, who was not only a Mason, but a high-ranked one. Jackson served as the grand master of the grand lodge of Tennessee from to Buchanan later went on to become one of the consistently worst-ranked presidents in US history.
In her biography on Johnson , historian Annette Gordon-Reed says that the former president remained a "proud Mason" throughout his life and that "the local Masonic temple played a great role in the funeral proceedings.
Garfield only served a few months of his presidency before being cut down by an assassin's bullet. He had a lengthier tenure in the Freemasons. McKinley succeeded Garfield as both the next Masonic president and the next president to be assassinated. Roadside America features a post documenting the site where McKinley was first initiated as a Mason, while fighting for the Union during the Civil War. It does me good to feel the thrill that comes from recognizing on all hands the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.
Friends persuaded the opposition to withdraw the objection, and on August 27, , nineteen years after his Initiation, Brother Harding achieved the Sublime Degree of Master Mason, in Marion Lodge. He was present, but did not participate in the Degrees when two other sons, James and Franklin D.
Southern Jurisdiction Headquarters in Washington D. President to reach that golden anniversary in Freemasonry.
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