Mount Moriah Lodge No. 37, A. F. & A. M.

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it straight along to you. Way out in San Jacinto County, there's a lodge with a story that stretches back about as far as Texas history itself. Mount Moriah Lodge Number 37, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Texas on January 15, 1848.

That's the starting gun. And where did this brand-new lodge first set up its business? The Mount Pleasant settlement.

Not a courthouse, not a grand hall. Just a community finding its footing. Early on, the brothers were convening at Fireman's Hill, in a schoolhouse that belonged to a man named Henry Gillette.

Now picture that. A schoolhouse. The smell of chalk, the creak of wooden floors, men conducting the ancient rites of the fraternity in a building where children sat their lessons by day.

Then, in 1853, that very building was moved to Coldspring. The schoolhouse itself picked up and traveled, and the lodge went right along with it. The early membership rolls read like a roll call of Republic of Texas pioneers, alongside distinguished public officials from both Polk and San Jacinto counties.

These were the people who had carved something out of raw land, and they were building institutions to match. But Coldspring itself had a rough chapter coming. A fire in 1915 reshaped the town so completely that Coldspring was relocated to a new townsite.

The lodge followed. In 1923, Mount Moriah moved to where the new town stood. And then, in 1962, a new lodge hall went up.

A proper home, at last, for a brotherhood that had been meeting in schoolhouses and following towns through fire since eighteen forty-eight. Some things, it turns out, are built to outlast just about everything.

What the marker says

Chartered by the Grand Lodge of Texas on January 15, 1848, this lodge first convened in the Mount Pleasant settlement. Early meetings were held at Fireman's Hill in a schoolhouse owned by Henry Gillette. That building was moved to Coldspring in 1853. Early members of the lodge included many Republic of Texas pioneers, as well as distinguished public officials of Polk and San Jacinto counties. The town of Coldspring was relocated after a 1915 fire, and the lodge moved to the new townsite in 1923. A new lodge hall was built in 1962.