Our History

1826 — The Founding

In 1826 Jackson was a young town in the Parish of Feliciana. Only sixteen years earlier the people of the Felicianas had risen against Spanish rule in West Florida, and Louisiana had been a state for just fourteen years. Into this frontier came the men who founded St. Albans Lodge.

On the evening of July 11, 1826, the brethren met to prepare, and on July 12 the officers of St. Albans Lodge were installed. The Craft walked in procession to the courthouse, where Brother R. Haile delivered an address, and then returned to the Lodge. That same evening the new Lodge received its first candidates. Elisha Andrews was the first Worshipful Master, and George W. Catlett the first Senior Warden.

The Lodge was born under a dispensation from John Anthony Quitman, Grand Master of Masons in Mississippi and later Governor of that state. Because Jackson lay in Louisiana, the brethren resolved in December 1826 to surrender their dispensation and seek a charter from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. In January 1827 the Grand Lodge of Mississippi accepted the surrender and commended the brethren to “the maternal care” of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, deeming them “eminently worthy of her fostering protection.”

1827 — A Louisiana Charter and a First Hall

The Grand Lodge of Louisiana chartered St. Albans Lodge No. 28 on January 6, 1827. That year the brethren built a hall of their own facing the public square. On September 5, 1827, they gathered at the chapel of the College of Louisiana for prayer, a sermon and an oration, then marched in procession to the new hall and consecrated it in due form.

Among the early members was Col. John Ball Horton, who gave the land for Jackson’s public square and laid out the town itself. He served as Secretary of the Lodge for much of its first five years.

A Lodge and Its College

St. Albans grew up beside the College of Louisiana and its successor, Centenary College. For many years the Lodge met in the college’s old Preparatory Building.

George W. Catlett

No man shaped the early Lodge more than George W. Catlett. Born in Virginia on July 10, 1798, he came to Jackson already a Mason of Alexandria, where he had the honor of clothing General Lafayette in the regalia of General Washington. He was a charter member of St. Albans and a member for forty-two years, and he served as Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana.

During the Civil War, while Catlett was Mayor of Jackson, Federal troops captured several Confederate soldiers in the town, among them members of St. Albans Lodge. Catlett met the colonel commanding the troops, and the two recognized one another as Masons. After an evening of Jackson hospitality, the colonel paroled all of the captured men.

Charity Before Comfort

Through war and hard times the brethren cared for the widows and orphans of Masons. In 1858 the Lodge adopted two young daughters of Masons for the purpose of educating them, and for years afterward it paid the schooling of children of brethren.

Dr. Lea, writing in 1926, observed that the Lodge carried debt for some sixty-six years because it would not stop giving while it paid what it owed. “This was poor business,” he wrote, “but mighty good Masonry.”

1876 — Spared by Fire

On March 22, 1876, a great fire swept through Jackson and, in Dr. Lea’s words, “practically burned up the town.” The Lodge building survived, and the brethren resolved to give thanks “to Almighty God, for the preservation of our Lodge building.”

“Oft, in the Stilly Night”

In 1921 Brother Henry L. Pond returned to the Lodge in his eighty-fourth year, after nearly forty years away. Standing in the East, with trembling voice, he recited Thomas Moore’s “Oft, in the Stilly Night” to the companions of his youth. Dr. Lea recorded that there was not a dry eye in the Lodge room.

1926 — The Centennial

On July 12, 1926, the Lodge marked its hundredth year. Past Master Dr. J. W. Lea read the minutes of every meeting of the century and compiled the history from which this page is drawn.

The Bicentennial

In 2027 St. Albans Lodge No. 28 celebrates the two hundredth anniversary of its Louisiana charter, which hangs in our Lodge hall today. The names on our rolls have changed, but the work has not: making good men better, caring for one another and our community, and keeping the light burning for the brethren who come after us.