DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Dewitt Clinton Lodge Number Twenty-Nine. Now, if you want to understand a place, you find out what its people built — and what they built before they had to. So let's talk about a lodge that's been a fixture of Jasper, Texas, since before Texas was even a state.
Dewitt Clinton Lodge Number Twenty-Nine, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Named for a former governor of New York and a fellow Mason — a man whose name carried enough weight that brothers down here in the piney woods of East Texas saw fit to honor it. Meetings were already underway by eighteen forty-five, eighteen forty-six, while the Republic of Texas was still finding its footing.
Then came eighteen forty-eight, and with it a formal charter. Official. Recognized.
The kind of paperwork that says: we're not going anywhere. The first Worshipful Master was Z. Williams Eddy.
That name deserves a moment of respect — the man who set the gavel down first, who called the first official meeting to order under that charter. Now here's the part that tells you something about who these men were. Just two years after that charter was granted, the Lodge turned around and established the Jasper Collegiate Institute — in eighteen fifty.
A school. They didn't wait for someone else to do it. They did it themselves, and they kept supporting it all the way until it closed in eighteen fifty-seven.
Seven years of putting their money and their name behind education in this county. That spirit didn't leave when the school did. The Lodge has gone on to sponsor scholarships for local students — the same essential idea, carried forward across the generations.
Many prominent Jasper citizens, the marker tells us, have counted themselves members. For a long stretch of that history, the Lodge stood right on the Courthouse Square — the physical and civic heart of Jasper. They didn't leave that spot until their current building was completed in nineteen eighty-six.
From the Republic of Texas to a new building in eighty-six. Some things in Jasper County have a way of enduring.
What the marker says
Named for a former New York governor and Mason, this Lodge dates to the Republic of Texas. Meetings began in 1845-46, and a formal charter was granted in 1848. The first worshipful master was Z. Williams Eddy. The Lodge established Jasper Collegiate Institute in 1850 and supported it until the school closed in 1857. The Lodge has sponsored scholarships for local students. Many prominent Jasper citizens have been members of this Lodge. The Lodge was located on the Courthouse Square until this building was completed in 1986. (1997)