CHAPTER I
MASONRY IN INDIANA

Masonry in Indiana descended from Virginia by way of Kentucky. The Grand Lodge of Virginia was founded in 1777. It granted charters to various lodges in Kentucky which was then a part of the Virginia Territory. After the Grand Lodge of Kentucky was organized in 1880, it issued dispensations for the formation of lodges in Indiana as follows: Vincennes, Charlestown, Madison, Corydon, Salem, Lawrenceburg, Vevay and Rising Sun. The Lodge of Brookville, the only other Lodge in the Territory, received its charter from Ohio. These were the only Lodges in Indiana prior to the organization of the Grand Lodge of Indiana in 1818. The first Lodge organized in the Indiana Territory was at Vincennes, now No. 1, which was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky on August 31, 1809.

The Territory of Indiana was admitted to the Union as a State in 1816, and the brethren deemed it advisable to take steps toward the formation of a Grand Lodge. Accordingly, a convention of representatives of all the above Indiana Lodges met at Corydon on December 3, 1817, for the purpose of taking the preliminary steps for such organization.

Agreeable to a resolution from this convention, delegates from the same Lodges met in the town of Madison, Indiana, on January 12, 1818, and there consummated the organization of the Grand Lodge of Indiana, electing Alexander Buckner of Chariestown as the first Grand Master.

The several Lodges there represented then surrendered their charters and were granted new ones by the Grand Lodge of Indiana. On the same day, a special committee made a report, containing twenty-four sections, embracing the main features of the constitution as it exists today. The Grand Lodge seal, still in use, was adopted at that time after being described in complete detail.

And so it came to pass that the Grand Lodge was legally organized in Indiana on the twelfth day of January, 1818. It is remarkable, owing to the newness of the country at that time, the lack of educational facilities, and the somewhat crude materials out of which the organization necessarily had to be constructed, that the foundation was so substantially laid. Our early Indiana brethren built better than they knew. No Grand Lodge has existed so long with so little friction, and has so satisfactorily extricated itself from so many difficult problems as the Grand Lodge of Indiana. Its history is one in which its members can take great pride, and it stands today with an honorable record of over one and one-half centuries.

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Last update November 9, 1999.