Original annual returns, petitions, dispensations and letters from the Masonic lodges of DeKalb County, Tennessee, photographed and gathered into five downloadable PDF collections.
Why lodge records matter to family historians
Every year, each Masonic lodge in Tennessee sent an annual return to the Grand Lodge in Nashville. It listed every member by name, named the officers, and recorded who was initiated, passed and raised that year, who joined from another lodge, who withdrew, who was suspended or expelled, and who died. Many give exact dates.
For a man who left few other records, a run of lodge returns can place him in a community year by year, show when he arrived or left, and sometimes pin down a death date that appears nowhere else. They are especially useful for the 1850s and 1860s, when DeKalb County’s courthouse records are thin and the Civil War disrupted everything else.
The lodges
Four lodges are represented in these records:
- Liberty Lodge No. 77 was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Tennessee on October 4, 1831. Its first officers were W. C. Garrison (Worshipful Master), Onesimus Evans (Senior Warden) and Levi S. Gilliam (Junior Warden). According to a 1964 history written by the lodge, it was located between Liberty and Smithville until a fire in 1844, then moved to Smithville.
- Alexandria Lodge No. 175 at Alexandria.
- DeKalb Lodge No. 358 at Liberty. Its members petitioned for it on March 2, 1867, and it received its dispensation on October 10, 1867.
- Short Mountain Lodge No. 373 at Mechanicsville. Its members petitioned for it on October 6, 1867, and it received its dispensation on January 20, 1868.
A quarrel over new lodges, 1867
The papers tell a small story of their own. In the summer of 1867, DeKalb County men applied to form two new lodges, one at Liberty and one at Short Mountain. Alexandria Lodge voted to recommend the Liberty petition on July 20, 1867. Supporters of the new lodge had “assembled en masse for the purpose” and outnumbered everyone else at the meeting.
Two months later, on September 21, 1867, a group of Alexandria members wrote to the Grand Lodge to protest. New lodges had already been approved at New Middleton, Statesville and Smith’s Fork, they said, and Liberty was “only seven miles south of Alexandria and a good turnpike road all the way.” They asked the Grand Lodge to stop placing lodges closer than the constitutional distance, “whereby the life blood may be squeezed out of us.” The protest failed, and DeKalb Lodge No. 358 received its dispensation three weeks later.
The collections
Liberty Lodge No. 77
19 pages. Annual returns for 1848, 1853, 1865 and 1866; the September 21, 1867 protest from Alexandria Lodge members against a new lodge at Liberty; and a 1964 letter from the lodge’s past-masters picture committee that lists the charter officers and every Master of the lodge from 1845 to 1964.
Alexandria Lodge No. 175
30 pages. Annual returns for 1853, 1856, 1860, 1861, 1865, 1866 and 1867. Most include the full membership roll. Highlights include:
- A numbered list of 74 members in 1860.
- Expulsions and the reasons given for them.
- A note that the lodge waived the fees of Bro. N. Hays and Bro. M. E. Johnston because each was “a regular minister of the Gospel.”
- Detailed degree dates for 1866 and 1867, the years right after the war, when the lodge took in many new members.
DeKalb Lodge No. 358
10 pages. These are the papers from the lodge’s founding:
- The March 2, 1867 petition with its 17 signatures.
- Recommendations from Alexandria and Liberty Lodges.
- The dispensation of October 10, 1867, naming C. W. L. Hale as first Master.
- The lodge’s first annual return, for 1868.
- A September 13, 1868 letter from Secretary W. D. G. Carnes to the Grand Lodge. It explains that several members had taken their first degrees at Alexandria before the new lodge existed.
Short Mountain Lodge No. 373
9 pages. These cover the lodge’s founding and first two years:
- The October 6, 1867 petition from members of Liberty Lodge No. 77 and Woodbury Lodge No. 235, with the approvals of both lodges.
- The dispensation of January 20, 1868, naming John Hawkins as first Master.
- The annual returns for 1868 and 1869.
Other material
2 pages. A map of Masonic Districts 14–16 that shows where each lodge sits, and a printed history of Masonry in DeKalb County. One caution: the printed history dates DeKalb Lodge No. 358 to 1858, but its dispensation in these records is dated 1867. The book appears to have confused the lodge number with the year.
Reading the returns
The forms use Masonic terms and abbreviations that can be confusing at first:
| On the form | What it means |
|---|---|
| W.M. | Worshipful Master, the head of the lodge for that year |
| S.W. / J.W. | Senior Warden / Junior Warden |
| S.D. / J.D. | Senior Deacon / Junior Deacon |
| Treas. / Sec. | Treasurer / Secretary |
| Tyler | Doorkeeper of the lodge |
| Initiated | Received the first degree and became an Entered Apprentice (E.A.) |
| Passed | Received the second degree and became a Fellow Craft (F.C.) |
| Raised | Received the third degree and became a Master Mason (M.M.) |
| Admitted | Joined from another lodge |
| Withdrawn / Dimitted | Left the lodge in good standing, often because he moved away |
| A.L. 5860 | “Anno Lucis,” the Masonic calendar. Subtract 4000 to get the ordinary year (1860). |
Many names have small x’s or check marks beside them in pencil or ink. These look like tally marks made while the return was being counted. Don’t read them as death marks unless the Deaths column says so.
The lodge year usually ran from October to October. A return “for the year ending October 1, 1866” covers events from late 1865 through September 1866. If a date has no year, check the return’s date range before assigning one.
About these records
These records were shared with us by those that hold the history of Mason’s close to their heart. Images are shared for genealogical and historical research. If you find an ancestor here, or can identify someone in these lists, I’d love to hear from you.
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