Commander’s Newsletter April, 2025

From the Commander

Sir Knights,

This newsletter to inform you that Brenham Commandery No. 15 is making plans to merge with Ivanhoe Commandery No. 8.  We are taking this action because there has been declining membership and knightly participation over the decades.

We received a dispensation last year and tried meeting in Anderson, TX with the hopes that this growing lodge would support a commandery to keep it alive.  This hope has not come to fruition and, as a result, it is time to consider ceasing the operation of Brenham Commandery and merge with Ivanhoe Commandery in Bryan.

I wanted to send you this newsletter to inform you of plans.  I plan to entertain a motion for merger at our Brenham Commandery meeting in Anderson on Wednesday April 2, 2025. This proposal will lie over to a subsequent meeting for any action.

During the Grand Commandery of Texas session in early to mid April our dispensation to meet in Anderson will expire and our meetings will return to our regular third Thursday York Rite night in Brenham.

It is anticipated that at the following Brenham Commandery meeting that the Commandery will vote in the affirmative to merge Brenham Commandery with Ivanhoe Commandery No. 8.  Should the motion pass, Brenham Commandery will cease to meet in Chappell Hill and will, instead, merge with Ivanhoe and operate as a merged commandery pending final approval of the Grand Commander.

Currently, Ivanhoe Commandery No. 8 meets on the first Wednesday of the odd numbered months in Brazil’s Union Masonic Lodge building.  Their next meetings are scheduled for May 7 and July 2.  We invite your participation at these meetings.

As this is a fluid situation, some of these plans may become altered as circumstances dictate, so watch this website for announcements for the latest information.  But please DO plan to attend our meeting in Anderson on April 2 and in Brenham on April 17.

 

Non nobis domini…. 

 

Chris Dalrymple,

Commander

I thought you might find some history about the Knights Templar to be of interest.

The First Knight Templars in the United States, in Texas and in Brenham

Excerpted and adapted from an article by SK Michael KAULBACK, REPGC, MA-RI; excerpted from The First Knights Templar in the United States from Grand Commandery of Texas Website. 

How far back do the Masonic Knights Templars go?  The short answer is: Masonic Templary arose sometime in the 1750s, but is documented to have begun in the late 1700s.  

• 1769 and 1770 are the documented dates of the first Masonic Templar made in America.  1770 was also the year of the Boston Massacre initiating the beginnings of the American Revolution.  

• 1805 is the establishment date of the KT Grand Encampment for the United States.  

• Fifty Years later the Grand Commandery of Texas was created in 1855 and…

• a little over twenty-five years after that, in 1881, Brenham Commandery was originated a little over 75 years after the foundation of our Grand Encampment.  

If our merger proceeds as expected, Brenham Commandery will have lived for 144 years in Brenham before retreating to merge with Ivanhoe Commandery in Bryan.

Here is more of our history: following the demise of the Historic Knights Templar in 1312, the earliest Templar Knights in the territories we know as Great Britain may or may not have been affiliated directly with Masonry, or even the historic Templars, but the earliest recorded masonic Knights Templar organizations were in Scotland and Ireland nearly 400 years later in the 1700s. The initiation of the Grand Lodge of England in occurred in 1717.

No one is absolutely certain as to the exact dates involved.  However, in America the series of events are easier to follow.  A half a century later the earliest written record available in America mentioning the Knights Templar is to be found in the records of St. Andrew’s Royal Arch Chapter (called a Royal Arch lodge at that time.) On 28 August, 1769, William Davis was Accepted and Accordingly made by receiving the four steps – that of Excellent, Super Excellent, Royal Arch, and Knight Templar. 

William Davis owned an Apothecary shop on Prince Street near the Charles River Bridge in Boston. He had one son, Benjamin Davis, born 20 March 1765, who eventually became a Major in the local Massachusetts Militia. It was a natural extension of Davis’ masonic Career that led him to petition for and receive the four steps of Excellent, Super-Excellent, Royal Arch and Knight Templar. He was a member of two Ancient’s Lodges, St. Andrew’s and British Army Lodge No 58. It was through the Scottish and Irish Ancient Lodges that the Higher Degrees of York Rite Masonry arrived in America in 1769. 

It is therefore a logical assumption the ritual or ceremonial system used to confer the four steps was, in fact, learned in Ireland where  Glittering Star  Lodge No 322 was active between 1759 and 1765. There exists several Knight Templar membership certificates : one dated 1759 from Ireland, and several others dated in the period 1770-1790. 

Paul Revere

A printing plate used in the printing of Lodge Summonses in 1790 has many recognizable emblems, and seems to show that the central idea of the Knight Templar Degree was basically the same as it is today with a very much shortened ritual. We do know that it was the regular custom to  Work  or Communicate the Four Degrees at one meeting. A Bylaw of St. Andrew’s Chapter of 1769 appears to indicate that the early meetings were held with the members seated around a table.

In his book Pour La Foy, George Draffen gives an extract from the Regulations of the Temple relative to the reception of new Fratres. The extract consists of a list of questions and answers that was apparently used to admit knights into the medieval Order of the Templars; it is indicated that the Scottish Templar Ritual is based on this working. It is thus probable that the degree communicated to William Davis that evening utilized this Ritual.

In 1769 there were already Knights Templar in America, but William Davis has the honour and distinction of being the first Knight Templar to be created in what is now the U.S.A.  The second Knight Templar in America was created on 11 December, 1769. His name was Paul Revere, yes, THAT Paul Revere. He petitioned and received the Degrees of Excellent, Super-Excellent, Royal Arch and Knight Templar in St. Andrew’s Chapter on 11 December, 1769. 

The third Knight Templar in America was created on 14 May, 1770. His name was Joseph Warren, perhaps the best known of the three. He was the first hero of the Revolution, and his job description at that time might have consisted of physician, patriot, politician, spy, military General, writer, and, most importantly for our purposes, freemason. He held the title of Presiding Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of St. Andrew (Ancients) when he was created a Knight Templar and still held it when he gave his life on the battlefield of Bunker Hill. 

Following in the footsteps of these pioneers, Knights Templar appear in Pennsylvania (1779), South Carolina (1780), Nova Scotia, and in Massachusetts during the 1780’s and 1790’s. On 13 May, 1805 at a convention of Knights Templar held in Providence, Rhode Island, the convention adopted a constitution and declared the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar in the United States duly formed. 

These then were the first men and Freemasons who joined the large army of Knights Templars who are bound to give alms to poor and weary pilgrims, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and bind up the wounds of the afflicted.  These Knights have rallied to the call of the Beausceant; an army of Christian freemasons.

So, whereas Masonic Templary is documented to have originated somewhere around the 1750s, and perhaps earlier, 1769 and 1770 is the documented dates of Masonic Templary arising in America and a KT Grand Encampment in 1805.  

Fifty Years later the Grand Commandery of Texas was created in 1855 and, a little over twenty-five years later, in 1881, Brenham Commandery was originated. 

Where Brenham York Rite owned the third floor
and allowed York Rite Bodies to meet in Brenham.