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​Lawrence, KS Masonic Lodge #6

The Earliest History of Lawrence Lodge No. 6 by
Jon M. Woodward, PM
​Presented on the occasion of
the lodge’s 150th anniversary celebration as the Lawrence Masonic Center,
1601 W. 23rd Street, Lawrence, Kansas July 15, 2006
The history of Lawrence Lodge No. 6 begins perhaps 36 years prior to its charting 150 years ago yesterday. In 1820, the Congress of the United States was struggling with the admission of new states and the question of whether those new states should be admitted to the Union as slave-holding or free. Leaders of Congress developed what became known as the Missouri Compromise that provided for the admission of one slave state and one free state. With its passage Maine and Missouri were admitted to the Union. The act also provided that any territory north of the southern border of Missouri would be free and any territory south of that latitude would be slave-holding.
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During the subsequent 30 years, the balance was maintained with three slave-holding states and three free states admitted. But with the admission of California as a free state in 1850, the balance shifted to the non-slave states. Southerners demanded that the Missouri Compromise be negated and that the prohibition of new slave holding states north of the southern border of Missouri be annulled. Free states vigorously objected.
In early 1854, Stephan A. Douglas, the Senator from Illinois, negotiated passage of what became known as the Kansas Nebraska Act. That act opened the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to settlement and provided that each could vote as to whether they would be free or slave-holding.
Shortly after passage of the Act on May 30, 1854, settlers began pouring into the territories, establishing settlements at Wyandotte and Atchison, as well as around the fort at Leavenworth and the mission at Shawnee.
​On August 1, 29 men who were scouting areas for the New England Emigrant Aid Company of Massachusetts arrived on Mt. Oread and began to survey and lay out the area for settlement. On September 9 of that year a large party of emigrants arrived between the Kaw River and Mt. Oread and established home sites. The group was led by Charles H. Robinson, and sponsored by Amos Adams Lawrence, for whom the settlement was named after several weeks.
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​Several years of hostilities between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, which we now call Bleeding Kansas, began almost immediately over whether Kansas was to become a free or slave state.
Masons arrived in Lawrence simultaneous with the establishment of the town, but owing to the hostilities, remained largely unrecognized and unorganized.
On the day the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, James Christian, who was then the Worshipful Master of Prairie Lodge No. 90 of Harrisonville, Missouri was attending the Missouri Grand Lodge in St. Louis. Later that summer during an official visitation, Brother Christian approached the newly-elected Grand Master of Missouri regarding the requirements for him to do Masonic work after his move to a new home in Kansas. He was told to gather the requisite number of Master Masons and be recommended by the nearest lodge and that the Grand Master would be pleased to grant a dispensation to conduct lodge meetings.
After moving to Lawrence in the spring of 1855, Brother Christian found it hard to find a man who would acknowledge himself as a Mason. Finally, by the summer of 1855, he had obtained sufficient names as required by Masonic Law. In order to assure that the men were indeed Masons, they met on the banks of the Kaw, paired off and examined each other as to their Masonic credentials. On finding that all were Brothers, they decided to organize a new lodge. Their first altar was a wooden bench and the jewels were made of tin, likely cut from used tin cans.
Brother Christian then journeyed twice to Westport, Missouri, a stronghold of slave-holders, to seek a recommendation by the closest active lodge. During his first trip he was unable to find the Master of the Lodge to ask for a meeting to seek permission. He returned about a month later, determined to stay until he was able to speak to the Master and meet with the lodge. Again the members of Westport Lodge attempted to hide from Brother Christian, but were unsuccessful. On gaining a meeting, he was challenged several times as to his Masonic credentials and demanded to be examined before the lodge. The Master was however, not proficient in the work and permission was granted to seek a dispensation from the Grand Master. The original dispensation by the Grand Lodge of Missouri was granted on September 24, 1855 to James Christian and eight other residents of Lawrence — Columbus ​​Hornsby, A.J. Gabbart, William Yates, E.D. Ladd, James Cowan, Lyman Allen, Charles Eskridge and William Lykins.

In May 1856, Brother Christian, who had been selected as the first Worshipful Master of the lodge went to Grand Lodge at Lexington Missouri to seek a charter, but was put off because the three already-chartered lodges in Smithton, Leavenworth and Wyandotte were in the processing of forming a Grand Lodge of Kansas. On July 14, 1856, the newly formed Grand Lodge of Kansas granted charters to Kickapoo Lodge No. 4, Washington Lodge No. 5 and Lawrence Lodge No. 6. Many have noted through the years that had the lodges been assigned numbers according to the date of their dispensation, Lawrence Lodge No. 6 would have been numbered No. 4. Brother Christian served as the first Worshipful Master of the lodge and was joined by all the brothers named on the writ of dispensation, as well as Dr. Sylvester Prentiss as charter members of Lawrence Lodge No. 6.
Over the next few years, the lodge continued to grow from the ten charter members, adding 18 more by affiliation before the first recorded degree work was done on February 4, 1858. By the start of the Civil War, the lodge had 70 members and continued to grow until August 21, 1863 when the lodge, its charter, tools and records were burned during Quantrill’s raid on the town. During the raid, history records the names of 125 men who were massacred. Of these 11 were recognized as Masons.
General GW Collamore, an Entered Apprentice, was the Mayor of Lawrence and died hiding in a well as his home was burned around him. Brother Joseph Lowe, not a member of Number 6, died trying to save him. A block south of Mayor Collamore’s house was the residence of Brother J. F. Griswold, a doctor, with whom boarded Brothers Montgomery Thorp, a Past Master and a State Senator, and Brother Josiah Trask, Junior Warden and editor of the State Journal. All three were shot dead in the street in front of the house. Also victims of the raiders were Brother W. T. Williamson, Brother Charles Smith of Topeka Lodge 17, Brother L.L. Swan of Auburn Lodge 32, and Brothers Ralph Dix, Samuel Bowers and J. Pollock whose lodges were not recorded by our records.
The murdered Brothers were commemorated by resolutions passed in numerous lodges in the state and by the Grand Lodge at its next meeting. In true Masonic spirit, the records of the Grand Lodge indicate that over the next two months, $599 (nearly $12,000 in current monies) was donated by various lodges throughout the state toward the relief of Brothers, widows and orphans suffering injuries and property loss in the raid.
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