Mantua Masonic Lodge No. 209, A. F. & A. M.
Van Alstyne, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The organizational meeting for this Masonic lodge was held on Feb. 7, 1857, on the second story of H.N. Walcott's store building in the village of Mantua (2 mi. SW). With district deputy grand master J.J. Harrison officiating, the first meeting was attended by J.M. Enloe, W.A. Portman, J.L. Leslie, W.M. Akens, A.J. McDonough, A.C. White, H.N. Walcott, J.L. Lovejoy, G.W. Strother, and J.S. Stewart. Other charter members of the lodge included Younger Scott McKinney, who had laid out the townsite several years earlier, and James W. Throckmorton, who later served as governor of Texas. A two-story lodge building was completed in 1859. The Masons met on the upper floor, while the first story housed a private school, the Mantua Seminary. After Van Alstyne was established on the Houston and Texas Central Railroad in 1872, most of the businesses and other establishments in Mantua, including the Masonic lodge, moved to the new town. The lodge members held meetings in various locations until 1898, when they purchased the Carter Building on the town square. In 1976 the lodge moved to its current location. Mantua Masonic Lodge No. 209 has provided valuable service to schools, churches, and needy persons, and remains an important part of the history of this area. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In February 1857, a group of Grayson County settlers gathered on the second story of a store in the little village of Mantua to charter a Masonic lodge, then a common civic anchor in frontier Texas towns. Among the charter members were Younger Scott McKinney, who had platted the townsite, and James W. Throckmorton, a future governor of Texas. When the railroad passed Mantua by in 1872 and gave rise to Van Alstyne, the lodge and most of the town simply picked up and relocated to the new rail stop.
Why it matters
Fraternal lodges like this one were often the first institutions of a frontier community, funding schools and charity, and their migration to the railroad tracks captures how the coming of the rails redrew the map of nineteenth-century Texas.
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Related people
- · James W. Throckmorton
- · Younger Scott McKinney
- · H.N. Walcott
Themes & tags
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