Frank W. Campbell

Little is recorded of the life of Frank W. Campbell outside the lodge room. He received his degrees in Gray Lodge in 1894: the Entered Apprentice on March 28, the Fellowcraft on July 4, and the Master Mason degree on August 8. He moved quickly through the line, serving as Senior Deacon in 1895–1896, Junior Warden in 1896–1897 and Senior Warden in 1897–1898.

In 1898 he was installed as the 28th Master of Gray Lodge by Past Master C. J. Wright of Holland Lodge No. 1, then District Deputy Grand Master, aided by Past Master J. S. Wilson of Gray. During his year the Grand Lodge chose Fort Worth for the Masonic Widows and Orphans Home, and the lodge sent its Senior Warden, John Hughes, to the laying of the cornerstone on January 7, 1899. The lodge also looked after its own at a distance, authorizing lodges at Kerrville and Goldthwaite to care for Brother William Van Ghlan in his last illness and to see that he was given a respectable burial.

He remained one of the lodge’s steady hands after his term. He served as Marshal at the installations of John Nicholson in 1900 and Marcus S. Clark in 1902. In January 1901 he was one of three members appointed to go to Corsicana to argue before the Grand Lodge committee that the Grand Lodge should stay in Houston, and in 1902 he served on the committee that sought a floor for Masonic use in the new Kirby Building at Main and Rusk.

He demitted from Gray Lodge on June 1, 1904. Nearly four decades later, on October 20, 1943, he returned to visit and gave the Brethren “a short and brief sketch of Gray Lodge and its meetings during the time he was master of the same.” He died in New Mexico some years before the lodge’s centennial.