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.
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Related people
- · Spencer C. Wadlington
Themes & tags
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