William Martin Taylor

William Martin Taylor was born in Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio, on April 17, 1817. He left Lancaster at age seventeen and enrolled at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1835. He graduated from Miami University in 1839 and headed south. He spent time in both Mississippi and Louisiana before arriving in the Republic of Texas in 1843. First settling in Brazoria County, he was admitted to the Bar in Galveston in 1844 and moved to Houston that same year. He stayed in Houston until his law practice took him to Huntsville in 1848 and then to Crockett in 1850. He traveled extensively as a circuit attorney for the Ninth Judicial District of Texas until 1854. In 1855, he was elected State Senator representing Anderson and Houston counties. He was re-elected in 1857 to the same post. In 1858, he was appointed school examiner in Houston and was responsible for the issuance of teacher certificates. In 1862, he was elected District Judge, a post he held through the end of the Civil War until he was removed by the Reconstruction government. During the Civil War, he received a commission as a Brigadier General, and served as a recruiter for the Confederate Army. After the war, he served as a delegate to the Reconstruction Convention in Austin at the direction of Jack Hamilton, Military Governor of Texas. It was while living in Houston, however (soon after emigrating to the Republic) that he petitioned for the Degrees in Freemasonry.

Taylor was initiated at Holland Lodge No. 1 on March 15, 1845. He was passed to the second degree on his twenty-eighth birthday – April 17, and was raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason five weeks later on May 22, 1845. It is worth noting that Taylor received his degrees from two of the most celebrated ritualists of the era – Archibald Sinclair Ruthven conferred the Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft degrees, and John Walton conferred the Master Mason degree.

Taylor took the ritual almost immediately. Upon his death in 1871, a Resolution of Memoriam was published which read in part, “When examined in Passing and Raising, he went through the entire degrees without missing a question.” It is important to note that the examination at passing would have been the Entered Apprentice trial lecture and the examination at raising would have been the Fellowcraft trial lecture. At the time, demonstrating proficiency in the Master Mason trial lecture was uncommon. Then in 1848, only three years after being raised, he was elected Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Texas.

His law practice took him to Huntsville in 1848 and he affiliated with Forrest Lodge No. 19. He was promptly elected Worshipful Master in 1849. There is no record that he ever held any other office in Forrest Lodge. While living in Huntsville and a member of Forrest Lodge, he maintained his position as Grand Lecturer and was able to coordinate his travels with the Ninth Judicial Circuit with his duties as Grand Lecturer. As he traveled, he would spend the day practicing law in the courthouse and the evening practicing Freemasonry in a lodge. In 1850, he was elected Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Texas. He had been a Mason for only five years and a Past Master less than one year. He dimitted from Forrest Lodge in 1851 and affiliated with Lothrop Lodge No. 21 in Crockett. He was elected Worshipful Master of Lothrop the following year (1852). He was re-elected in 1853 and held the office six more times between 1856 and 1867.

A mere nine years after being made a Mason, Taylor was nominated from the floor and elected Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Texas on Wednesday, January 18, 1854. Grand Master, however was not his first Grand presiding office; nor was it his last. A year before (1853) he served as the Grand High Priest of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Texas. During his tenure as Grand Master, he attended and participated in the formation of the Grand Encampment (Commandery) of Knights Templar of Texas. He was elected Grand Generalissimo that year and served as Grand Commander of the Grand Encampment of Texas in 1856. Also in 1856, he presided over the convention to organize a Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters in Texas. He was elected Grand Master of the Grand Council in 1857. Thus, Taylor was the first Texas Mason to hold the designation of being a Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Texas, a Past Grand High Priest of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Texas, a Past Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Texas, and a Past Grand Commander of the Grand Encampment (Commandery), Knights Templar of Texas. Despite all these grand titles, it is yet another component of our fraternity for which he is best known: the ritual.

The Grand Lodge of Texas was struggling to find its ritualistic identity in the mid-1850s. In 1844 Cross’ The True Masonic Chart, or Hieroglyphic Monitor (published in 1819) was adopted for use in Texas. In 1852 and in 1853, resolutions were proposed to standardize the Texas ritual; neither of which were adopted. In 1855, Past Grand Master Taylor was elected as the first chairman of the newly formed Committee on Work. The charge of the Committee on Work was to develop a Texas Masonic Ritual. It took that committee three years to develop a ritualistic ceremony for opening and closing a lodge and for the conferral of the three degrees. In 1858, the Committee on Work exemplified its ritual at the annual communication of the Grand Lodge of Texas (which happened to be held in Huntsville at Forrest Lodge) and it was adopted.

Past Grand Master Taylor’s attention to detail and understanding of Freemasonry are manifested in the time it took him to hone the ritual. Masonic scholars will note that Taylor was a student of the York Rite work published by Thomas Smith Webb and Jeremy Ladd Cross. The ritual he developed builds upon the foundations of both but differed enough to be uniquely Texan.

After the “Taylor Work” (as it was then called) was adopted, there was a need for a lodge manual to accompany it. It was noted that a monitor must agree with the esoteric work of the jurisdiction. Cross’ monitor was therefore no longer relevant. In 1859, the Grand Lodge of Texas approved and adopted A Manual of Freemasonry: Adopted to the Work and Government of the Lodges Subordinate to the Grand Lodge of Texas, which became known as the Taylor Monitor. The Taylor Monitor was the standard in Texas Freemasonry for fifty years, until it was revised in 1908 by Past Grand Master Sam R. Hamilton (himself a former member of the Committee on Work) and styled the Taylor-Hamilton Monitor.

Taylor continued to serve the Masons of Texas. In 1858 he served as a District Deputy Grand Master. After the “Taylor Work” was adopted, the charge of the Committee on Work changed from the development of a ritual to the preservation of it. Under his leadership, the Committee began to hold examinations during the annual Grand Communication and issued Certificates of Proficiency in the work and lectures of the ritual. He continued as chairman of the Committee on Work until his death in 1871.

Past Grand Master Taylor attended the triennial conclave of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar, U.S.A., in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1871. While there, he became ill and died on September 21, 1871 of pneumonia which was exacerbated by erysipelas. He was interred at Baltimore, and the Masonic Graveside Service was attended by Fidelity Lodge No. 136 (Grand Lodge of Maryland) and officiated by Grand Master (Maryland) John H. Latrobe. A century later, the Masons of Texas brought Past Grand Master Taylor home. He was re-interred at Glenwood Cemetery in Crockett, Texas in 1970.

William Martin Taylor was a statesman, a judge, a general, an author, and a Freemason. He was the first Texas Masonic Four Star, having presided over all four grand bodies. He is credited with developing the Texas Masonic Ritual and the first Texas monitor. He recognized in the mid-nineteenth century the need for ritualistic proficiency. His dedication to our craft has, perhaps, had more influence on the fraternity than any other. He is the Father of the Texas Masonic Ritual.

-Bio written by Jim Rumsey, Committee on Work for the Grand Lodge of Texas and Past Master of the Texas Lodge of Research. It was published in the Summer 2019 issue of the Texas Freemason Magazine.

Obituary

Glenwood Cemetery Crockett, Tx.