Humberto Moreira

No less than fifteen Presidents of Mexico have been Freemasons: Miguel Aleman, Nicholas Brave, Anastasio Bustamante, Plutarco E. Calles, Lazaro Cardenas, Ignacio Comonfort, Porfirio Diaz, Emilio Portes Gil, Manual Gonzalez, Vincinte Guerrero, Augustin de Iturbide, Benito Juarex, Francisco Madero, Archduek Maximilian and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Recent presidents of Mexico have not been Masons, but a number of the Grand Lodges and the Scottish Rite there are closely identified with the ruling party "Partido Revolucionario Institucional" (PRI).  Humberto Moreira, the leader of that party, and former Governor of the State of Coahuila (2005-2011) is not only a Freemason, but is also the Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Supreme Council for Mexico.  Brother Moreira is considered a potential future president of Mexico.  A grandson of Brother Rubén Moreira Cobo (a former SGIG of Mexico), he has worked diligently to unite competing Grand Lodges in his country.  Most see his efforts as being successful.  He says he sees the unification of the Mexican Lodges as being "important for achieving a platform of peace, unity and fraternal communication."

City Of The Land Of The Indians

Jeremiah Sullivan (1794-1870), Union Lodge 2, Madison, Indiana, was a founder of Hanover College and the Indiana Historical Society.  An attorney, he eventually became a justice of the Indiana Supreme Court.  While a member of the state legislature in 1820, the Indiana Capital moved from Corydon to a new area, centrally located on the White River.  Brother Sullivan proposed the name for the new city by combining the name of the state, Indiana ("land of the Indians") and the Greek word for "city," giving the state capital its current name: Indianapolis.

Albert Edward In Missouri

On September 26, 1860, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, future Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England and later King Edward VII (1901-10), visited St. Louis and attended the Missouri agricultural and mechanical fair.  There he purchased a trotting horse and dined on buffalo tongue, quail, prairie chicken and Missouri wine.

From Hungary To The Vintners Hall Of Fame

Agoston Haraszthy, was a Hungarian nobleman who emigrated to the US in 1840 and settled in Wisconsin.  A member of Madison Lodge 5, he was the first Hungarian to settle permanently in the United States.  He founded the oldest incorporated village in Wisconsin, today known as Sauk City.  In 1849, he moved to California where he established the state's renowned wine industry.  In March, 2007, the Culinary Institute of America recognized his pioneering efforts by inducting him into the Vintners Hall of Fame.

Shibboleth

In the late 18th century, Barton Lodge in Ontario accepted "good merchantable wheat" as payment for dues.

The Scapegoat

William Hull (1753-1825), a member of multiple Lodges and the first Master of Meridian Lodge in Natick, Massachusetts, was an officer in the American Revolution and a Brigadier General in the War of 1812. Defending Detroit in that war reinforcements and supplies failed to reach WB Hull, forcing him to surrender.   Made a scapegoat for these actions, Hull was tried, found guilty of cowardice and sentenced to death.  In a bizarre twist, the court then sent Brother Hull home to Newton, Massachusetts, to await his execution!  Upon receiving reports of the strange case, President James Madison realized Brother Hull had been set up and gave him a full pardon.  History, indeed, regards William Hull as a hero, not a traitor.

Andrew Jackson Decapitated!

In 1834, the venerable USS Constitution, launched in 1797, the standout vessel of the War of 1812, was destined for the scrap heap.  Heeding a public outcry, Brother Andrew Jackson, then president, stepped in and saved the iconic ship.  In gratitude the group charged with restoring the Constitution replaced its figurehead with a likeness of Jackson.  The gesture infuriated Jackson's enemies who, three months later, sneaked aboard and decapitated the statue.  The following year, a new head replaced the old one and that figurehead remained in place for fifteen years until a new statue of Jackson in a Napoleonic pose replaced it.  The severed head resurfaced as a conversation piece in the taverns of New York until it was eventually returned to Mahlon Dickerson, Secretary of the Navy, but with the lower part containing the mouth missing.  It was not until 2010 that the two pieces were reunited, when a Public Broadcasting crew rediscovered the missing lower section.