Masonic Trivia

It's time for a little Masonic Trivia

Here are 15 things you may not know about your fraternity and your brothers...

Brother "Jimmy" Doolittle earned the Congressional Medal of Honor flying missions to Japan able to go that distance only by high octane aviation fuel he had himself invented.

The Liberty Bell cracked while tolling the Death of Chief Justice John Marshall, Past Grand Master of Virginia.

A Masonic Lodge, Henry Knox Lodge of Massachusetts, was constituted on the ship USS Constitution, also known as "Old Ironsides," on March 17, 1926.

The military bugle call "Taps," written by Brother Daniel Adams Butterfield, was originally called "Butterfield's Lullaby."

Abraham Lincoln petitioned the Masonic Lodge in Springfield, Illinois, but did not join, thinking it would look like he was doing so for political purposes.

Brother Richard Gatling invented the Gatling Gun believing it was such a terrible weapon fear of using it would actually save lives.

Brother Charles Lindbergh, known for his historic flight across the Atlantic, once had his picture on the cover of Time Magazine for inventing what was called an artificial heart.

Brother Harland Sanders started his huge Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise empire with nothing more than a single Social Security Check.

All four presidential candidates in 1948, Republican Thomas Dewey, Progressive Henry Wallace, Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond and the eventual winner,

Democrat Harry Truman, were Freemasons.

From its founding as a state in 1890 until the mid-twentieth century, every governor of Wyoming was, with one exception, a Freemason. That exception was Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman governor in the United States, a member of the Eastern Star.

In 1953, the Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Texas was a Brother named Hiram Abiff Boaz.

Gerrymandering, the rearranging of voting districts mainly for political purposes, is named for Brother Elbridge Gerry, fifth Vice President of the US.

Brother Charles P. "Chic" Sale once wrote a best-selling book about outhouses.

The oldest building in the US built specifically for Masonry is Mason's Hall on Franklin Street in Richmond Virginia. It was saved from destruction during the Civil War because Union troops guarded it, ordered to do so by a General who was a Mason.

And Finally, did you know there is only one city in the world known to be purposely laid out on a Masonic theme? Think it's Washington, DC? Think again. In 1816, Hector Kilbourne, a surveyor and member of the first Master of Science Lodge #50, laid out the original plat of Sandusky Ohio. He designed the city on a grid of equal-sized squares and rectangles representing an open Bible, with a square and compasses located in the center. He named many of the streets after famous Masons.