DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Flora Lodge Number One Nineteen, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, right here in Wood County, Texas. Now, before we get to the name on that sign, you need to know this lodge started out as something else entirely. It was founded before the Civil War — before the whole country tore itself in two — as Quitman Masonic Lodge.
The petition for the charter was made on January the fifth, eighteen fifty-two. James N. Brown stepped up as Worshipful Master.
A. Gunter took the post of Senior Warden. Francis C.
McKnight came in as Junior Warden. And the petitioners backing them up read like a roll call of early Wood County: George Birdwell, W. L.
Brown, S. M. Flournoy, I.
D. Goes, E. H.
McRee, I. H. McRee, M.
W. Matthews, and Joshua Smith. A full house of founders.
Now here is where it gets interesting — and I mean interesting in the way that makes historians scratch their heads and storytellers grin. Without any recorded explanation whatsoever, the lodge was given its present name on Christmas Day of eighteen fifty-two. Not a note.
Not a minute. Not a single surviving word to tell us why. Just — Merry Christmas, you're Flora Lodge now.
The marker doesn't explain it, and neither will I, because nobody knows. Early on, the lodge needed furniture, and they turned to a man the marker calls illustrious Wood County pioneer Peter Gunstream. He built that original furniture himself, and he did it for ten dollars and seventy-five cents.
Remember that number, because it's about to matter — not in a grand way, just in the way that small costs feel enormous when everything you built gets taken from you. In eighteen fifty-four, fire destroyed the lodge charter, the jewels, and all that furniture Gunstream had made. Gone.
A lodge that hadn't yet seen its third birthday, and it was starting over from ash. They didn't quit. By eighteen fifty-five, a combination Presbyterian church and lodge hall had been built on this very site and occupied.
One building doing double duty — preaching downstairs, lodge work up above. And the members, being the particular sort of men they apparently were, voted to prohibit smoking on the premises. Even then.
The early lodge worked diligently, the marker says, often meeting on Saturday mornings, then dismissing to attend preaching services downstairs, and afterward resuming their work. Picture that rhythm — gavel down, hymn up, gavel down again. That's a community living its whole life inside one building on one day of the week.
Then came the war, and the years after it. The ending of the Civil War found the lodge penniless and hard pressed to pay thirty cents a pound for candles bought in fifty-pound lots. Think on that for a moment.
Thirty cents a pound. Fifty pounds at a time. A lodge that had survived fire now scraping together what it needed just to keep a light burning in the room.
And they burned candles — and kerosene lamps — for a long, long stretch of time. Not until nineteen seventeen did electric lighting arrive and close what the marker calls a sixty-five-year time span of candles and kerosene. Sixty-five years of open flame keeping the lodge in session.
That's not quaint. That's stubborn. Flora Lodge built a new two-story structure at this historic location in nineteen forty-nine.
Same ground where the church and lodge hall had stood. Same place where the fire had taken everything once before. They built again, same as they always had.
Founded before the Civil War, renamed on Christmas Day without explanation, burned out and rebuilt, left penniless and still buying candles by the fifty-pound lot — Flora Lodge Number One Nineteen just kept the light on. One way or another, they always kept the light on.
What the marker says
Founded before the Civil War, as Quitman Masonic Lodge. Petition for charter was made on Jan. 5, 1852. First officers: James N. Brown, Worshipful Master; A. Gunter, Senior Warden; Francis C. McKnight, Junior Warden. Petitioners (other than the officers) included George Birdwell, W. L. Brown, S. M. Flournoy, I. D. Goes, E. H. McRee, I. H. McRee, M. W. Matthews, and Joshua Smith. Without any recorded explanation, the lodge was given its present name on Christmas Day of 1852. Original furniture was made by illustrious Wood County pioneer Peter Gunstream at cost of $10.75. In 1854 fire destroyed lodge charter, jewels, and furniture. Combination Presbyterian church and lodge hall was built on this site and occupied in 1855. Members voted to prohibit smoking on the premises. Ending of Civil War found the lodge penniless and hard pressed to pay 30 cents a pound for candles bought in 50 pound lots. In 1917 electric lighting closed a 65-year time span of candles and kerosene lamps. The early lodge worked diligently, often meeting on Saturday mornings, dismissing to attend preaching services downstairs, and afterward resuming work. Flora Lodge built new two-story structure at this historic location in 1949. (1972)