W. G. Brown

W. G. Brown was born on November 2, 1859, in Meriwether County, Georgia. It is not known where he received his Masonic degrees. He affiliated with Tannehill Lodge No. 52 of Dallas on November 26, 1889, and with Gray Lodge on November 16, 1892.

His path to the East was unusually quick and began at the door of the lodge. He served as Tiler in 1893–1894, then was elected Junior Warden for 1894–1895 and Senior Warden for 1895–1896. In 1896 he was installed as the 26th Master of Gray Lodge by Past Master J. S. Wilson.

His year brought one of the sharpest disputes in the lodge’s history. On September 2, 1896, Grand Secretary John Watson notified Gray Lodge that it would owe rent of $30 a month for the room in the Grand Lodge Temple it had used for about 25 years without charge. The lodge held a summoned meeting, laid the matter before the Grand Master, and argued that it had always kept the room in good repair and open to the Grand Lodge. The question was finally settled in 1898 at $5 a month, after the Grand Lodge found that Gray had first been given the room rent-free because the lodge had “handsomely decorated and furnished the same.”

The lodge also took care to do things in due form that year. It ordered that every member approaching the altar while the lodge was at labor do so “upon the square.” It began advertising its meetings in the Houston Post, bought lots in Hollywood Cemetery, and joined Holland Lodge in studying where the Masonic Widows and Orphans Home should be built. When member J. P. Howard died at Beaumont in October 1896, Worshipful Master Brown personally accompanied the body to Henderson, where Clinton Lodge No. 23 performed the graveside rites.

Brother Brown demitted from Gray Lodge on July 19, 1899. The lodge’s historian found no further record of him in Texas.