Matagorda Lodge No. 7, A.F. & A.M.
Matagorda County, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of the oldest Masonic lodges in Texas, this lodge traces its history to the Republic of Texas. A group of masons met together on June 24, 1838, and petitioned the newly created Grand Lodge of Texas for a charter to Seth Ingram as first master. From its beginning, the Matagorda Lodge was active and influential in the community's development. The first services of Christ Episcopal Church were held in the Masonic Hall. The masons operated a lending library for the town's citizens and supported local public education projects. In 1868, due to a succession of financial difficulties and the strains of the Civil War, the Matagorda Lodge was deactivated. The members maintained interest in the lodge, however, and it was finally rechartered by the grand lodge in 1911 under its original number. Many prominent Texans have been affiliated with this lodge, including local and state government officials. The lodge has counted among its members veterans of the war of 1812, the Texas Revolution, Mexican War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
One of the oldest Masonic lodges in Texas, Matagorda Lodge No. 7 dates to June 1838, when masons petitioned the young Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas for a charter under first master Seth Ingram. From the start it shaped community life—hosting the first Episcopal services, running a lending library, and backing public schools—before financial strain and the Civil War forced its deactivation in 1868 and a 1911 recharter under its original number. Its rolls have carried veterans of every American conflict from the War of 1812 through Vietnam.
Why it matters
The lodge shows how fraternal orders seeded schools, libraries, and civic institutions in frontier Texas, binding a young republic's scattered communities together.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Seth Ingram
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Christ Episcopal Church
Matagorda County, TX
Christ Episcopal Church traces its roots to 1838, when the Rev. Caleb S. Ives arrived as a missionary to the Republic of Texas and held his first service on Christmas Day. Formally organized in 1839, the parish built its first church by 1841 and ran the Matagorda Academy alongside it. After an 1854 hurricane destroyed the original, this building rose nearby in 1856, reusing salvaged altar, rail, and pews—surviving storm after storm as the oldest Episcopal congregation in Texas.
Christ Church
Matagorda County, TX
Organized on January 27, 1839, Christ Church was the first Episcopal church in Texas, established when the young Republic was barely three years old. Its building was consecrated in 1844 by the Bishop of Louisiana, and the parish helped anchor the founding of the Diocese of Texas in 1849. A hurricane destroyed the original structure in 1854, and it was rebuilt on the present site; the rector, the Rev. Caleb S. Ives, and his wife also ran one of the area's early schools.
Ira Ingram
Matagorda County, TX
Vermont-born Ira Ingram cast his lot with Texas in its revolutionary years, serving as the first alcalde of the Matagorda municipality in 1834 and, two years later, as the first Speaker of the House in the Congress of the new Republic of Texas. An early champion of public schooling, he died in 1837, barely outliving the republic's founding. His grave marks the passing of a founding-generation Texan.
First Presbyterian Church of Collegeport
Collegeport, TX
Collegeport was a planned townsite promoted by the Burton D. Hurd Land Company to sell Pierce family lands, complete with ground for a would-be Gulf Coast University of Industrial Arts. In 1909 leaders of fourteen denominations founded a federated church at the university chapel, calling as pastor Murray A. Travis, who also served as college dean and ran an early local newspaper. The congregation built a five-room sanctuary in 1910 that long doubled as schoolhouse and community center, and in 1922 formally joined the Presbyterian Church to become First Presbyterian of Collegeport.