George H. Brown

George H. Brown was an iron moulder by trade and was 31 years old when he petitioned Gray Lodge. He received his degrees in 1901: the Entered Apprentice on June 21, the Fellowcraft on August 16, and the Master Mason degree on September 27. He served as Senior Steward and Senior Deacon, was elected Junior Warden in 1905, and then served as Senior Warden.

His service to the lodge went well beyond a single year in the East. When Master F. G. Belk was kept away by a change in his work in 1907–1908 and could preside at only five meetings, Senior Warden Brown carried the lodge through the year. He was installed as the 37th Master in 1908 by Past Master E. N. Gray of Holland Lodge, assisted by Past Master J. H. Rothwell. That same night J. S. Wilson was installed as Treasurer, ending the long service of D. E. Bloxsom, who had kept the lodge’s funds since 1895 and had left the city. The lodge made Brother Bloxsom a life member.

His year was full of Masonic charity. Gray Lodge repaid the Chicago Masonic Board of Relief for helping an ailing member there and paid his bills until his death. It sent an altar, two columns, three stands and the lesser lights to Timpsonville Lodge No. 437, which had lost its hall by fire. It helped the widow of a member gain admittance to the Widows and Orphans Home and gave aid to Royden Lodge No. 778 and to the Masons of Zephyr, Texas, after a tornado destroyed that town. Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 of Virginia, the lodge over which Col. William Fairfax Gray had presided and in which George Washington received his degrees, asked for help building a memorial to Washington. The lodge also bought 30 more shares of Masonic Building Association stock and mourned the death of Past Master Horace Clark, Past Grand Chaplain, in February 1909.

At the 1909 election the lodge gave Worshipful Master Brown a vote of thanks “for the very able and efficient manner in which he had conducted the affairs of the Lodge for the past two years,” recognizing both his term and the year he had led as Senior Warden. In 1910 he was among the first Past Masters to receive a Past Master’s Jewel from the lodge.

He was High Priest of Washington Chapter No. 2, Royal Arch Masons, in 1909–1910. He died on August 18, 1921.