Masonic Cemetery of Hondo Valley Lodge No. 252, A.F. & A.M.
Hondo, Medina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1859, a decade after Medina County was created, Freemasons and others in the New Fountain Settlement built a 2-story stone church-lodge hall at this site. Hondo Valley Lodge No. 252, A.F. & A.M., was chartered in 1860. The Masonic Cemetery was opened here in 1864 when Junior Warden Rubin Smith was killed by Indians. Masons and members of their families rest here in 22 graves. By an unexplained circumstance, Masonic emblem is upside down on 2 headstones. Hondo Valley Lodge, demised in 1883, was parent of Devine Lodge No. 590 and Hondo City Lodge No. 756, A.F. & A.M. (1973)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1859 Freemasons and neighbors in the New Fountain Settlement built a two-story stone church-and-lodge hall here, and Hondo Valley Lodge No. 252 was chartered the next year. The adjoining cemetery opened in 1864 when Junior Warden Rubin Smith was killed by Indians, and twenty-two graves of Masons and their families lie within it—two headstones oddly bearing the Masonic emblem upside down. Though the lodge itself dissolved in 1883, it had already given rise to two daughter lodges nearby.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the fraternal bonds and frontier dangers of early Medina County, where settlers organized community life even as violence on the edge of settlement claimed their neighbors.
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Related people
- · Rubin Smith
Themes & tags
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