Former Site of Old Concord Methodist Church and Concord Masonic Lodge
Waskom, Harrison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Concord Lodge No. 77, A.F. & A.M.. was organized in 1850, receiving dispensation on Nov. 15 of that year. It was chartered Jan. 22, 1851, with 14 members: E. A. Geeter, N. M. Goode, N. Jones, J. B. Long, W. H. Luckie, J. R. McCartey, Neal McLane, S. S. Morris, W. C. Moseley, J. H. Price, R. E. Rhodes, J. L. Smith, G. W. Whitmore, A. B. Wright. The lodge met at first in the house of McCartey. The nine-acre site here was donated on April 28, 1853, by the owner of the original Republic of Texas grant, Spencer C. Wadlington (1790-1857), to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church South: S. F. Allston, T. C. Bentley, W. C. Crawford, W. D. Jefferson, B. H. Martin, J. S. Powell, A. B. Stone, and Oliver Thompson. A two-story building was erected on the site and was used for many years by the church and the lodge. The adjacent land became the community cemetery, with oldest stone marking the grave of Ophelia Polk Swanson, who died on March 15, 1850. The lodge was demised in 1880; later Concord Church disbanded. The building stood until the 1930s. Site was deeded (1970) by Texas Annual Conference of United Methodist Church, south Central Jurisdiction, to the Concord Cemetery Association, chartered 1970.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1850 a group of fourteen men organized Concord Masonic Lodge No. 77, meeting at first in a member's home. Three years later, the owner of the original Republic of Texas land grant donated nine acres to Methodist trustees, and a two-story building rose that served both church and lodge for decades, with a community cemetery growing beside it. The lodge closed in 1880 and the congregation later disbanded, but the burial ground endures under a cemetery association.
Why it matters
On the frontier a single shared building often housed both a congregation and a Masonic lodge, showing how church and fraternal order together knit early Texas communities into being.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1850, Harrison County was one of the most settled corners of Texas. It sits in the far northeast of the state against the Louisiana border, and it drew settlers early because it was close to the older South and to river routes. Many families came from Southern states and brought plantation agriculture with them. Cotton dominated the local economy, and by 1860 Harrison County had one of the largest enslaved populations in Texas. That fact belongs in any honest picture of the community's early years.
This was also the period just after Texas became a state. Much of the land had been granted during the Republic of Texas (1836–1845), and original grantees like Spencer C. Wadlington were landholders who could shape a community by giving land away.
The church named on this marker belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It formed in 1844, when American Methodism split into northern and southern branches, chiefly over slavery. A congregation of that denomination in East Texas in the 1850s was part of the Southern religious world of its time.
People & events
The first chapter belongs to fourteen men who organized Concord Lodge No. 77 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. They received their dispensation in November 1850 and their charter in January 1851. At first they had no hall at all and met in the house of member J. R. McCartey. Freemasonry spread widely on the American frontier, and lodges gave scattered settlers a network of mutual aid, sociability and civic leadership.
In April 1853, Spencer C. Wadlington (1790–1857) donated a nine-acre site to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He owned the original Republic of Texas grant for this land. A two-story building went up, and for many years the church and the lodge both used it. Frontier lodges often met on an upper floor while a congregation or school used the ground floor, though the marker doesn't say how this building was divided.
The adjacent land became the community cemetery. Its oldest stone, for Ophelia Polk Swanson, records her death on March 15, 1850, earlier than both the lodge charter and the land donation. People were already burying their dead here before the institutions were formally organized. Over time the community changed. The lodge was dissolved in 1880, the church later disbanded, and the old building stood until the 1930s. In 1970 the site passed to the newly chartered Concord Cemetery Association, which still looks after the burial ground.
Its place in the American story
Concord's shared building illustrates something that happened across nineteenth-century America. Congregations and fraternal lodges often pooled their resources to build one structure. The pattern was especially common in rural areas, where few people had money for two buildings. The church and the lodge were two of the main institutions that held frontier communities together, and here they literally shared walls.
The marker's long list of names also matters. By recording charter members and trustees, it preserves the people who did the work of building a community. Those names mostly appear nowhere else in the public record. Local markers like this one keep the history of ordinary community-builders, not just famous leaders.
Finally, Concord shows how many rural institutions rose and fell. The lodge and the church both disappeared as people moved and rural life changed. The cemetery outlasted them, as cemeteries so often do, and eventually passed into the hands of an association formed to protect it. The same story has played out at countless rural crossroads where the only remaining landmark is a burial ground.
If you visit
Today the site is mainly a cemetery, and that's what you'll find. The two-story building is long gone, so use the marker as a guide and imagine it standing nearby, with the congregation below and the lodge members gathering on their meeting nights.
Walk among the older stones and look for the ones dating to the 1850s and the decades after. Some of the surnames on the marker may appear on graves here too, though you'll have to look for yourself. Masonic emblems, like the square and compasses, sometimes appear on nineteenth-century headstones and are worth watching for. Please treat the grounds with care, since the cemetery association still maintains them.
The site is near Waskom, close to the Louisiana line, so it's a natural stop if you're driving between Texas and Louisiana or exploring the history of the Marshall area. It's a quiet place to think about how East Texas communities were built, and about who was included in them and who was not.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Spencer C. Wadlington
Themes & tags
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