[Click on image for detailed view of building face.]
History of Holland Lodge
Holland Lodge No. 1 has a very interesting history which reaches back to the formation of the Republic of Texas. Houston Chapter is proud to be associated with such a group of men as these.
Holland Lodge was organized in March 1835 at Brazoria as the first Masonic Lodge in Texas. Holland Lodge was set to work December 27, 1835, under dispensation of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, for whose 1835-37 Grand Master, John Henry Holland, the lodge was named.
Labors were interrupted in February 1836, during the Texas War for Independence, when the lodge and records were destroyed by the Mexican Army during the march of General Urrea to join forces with dictator Santa Anna. The charter, however, was then in the saddlebags of Dr. Anson Jones, Texas patriot and first Worshipful Master of Holland Lodge, who carried the sacred document into battle and victory at San Jacinto, April 21, 1836.
In November 1837, Holland Lodge was reopened, in the Republic of Texas capitol in Houston. On December 20, 1837, Holland Lodge No. 36 (their original designation under the Grand Lodge of Louisiana) met with the only other masonic bodies then existent in Texas -- Milam Lodge No. 40 of Nacogdoches and McFarland Lodge No. 41 of San Augustine -- and organized the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas. Dr. Anson Jones, of Holland lodge, was elected first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas, and Holland Lodge was assigned the No. 1 designation.
Historical information for Holland Lodge
was taken from the Historical Marker which
stands at the front of the the lodge building.
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