President 1845-1849 / Master Mason 1820
Master Mason 1820. EA, FC, MM, in Columbia Lodge No. 31, Columbia, Tenn., 1820, exalted a Royal Arch Mason in La Fayette Chapter No. 4 at Columbia in 1825.
President Polk, as a Freemason and elected Commander in Chief, assisted in the cornerstone laying of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. on May 1, 1847.
In Polk’s career as president he oversaw the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, the groundbreaking for the Washington Monument, and the issuance of the first postage stamps in the United States.
Polk was an early supporter of westward expansion expressed in a term that Democrats would later call “Manifest Destiny.”
President 1829-1837 / Master Mason 1800
It is suggested that President Jackson become a Mason in Harmony lodge No.1 in Tennessee. Harmony Lodge began as No.29 under the charter of North Carolina, later to be named No.1 under the Tennessee grand Lodge in 1913.
It has been said that Br. Jackson attended lodge at Clover Bottom Lodge under the Grand Lodge of Kentucky. He was present in lodge at Greeneville in 1801 and acted as Senior Warden pro-tem. The records of St. Tammany Lodge No.29 at Nashville, which became Harmony Lodge no.1 under the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, show that Jackson was a member.
A very active Freemason, President Jackson served as the Grand Master of Tennessee Masons from 1822 to 1823.
President 1817-1825 / Master Mason 1776
Entered Apprentice in Williamsburg Lodge No. 6 at Williamsburg, VA., on November 9, 1775. Sadly there is no record of his taking any further degrees beyond the first.
The records of Cumberland Lodge no. 8 in Tennessee, June 8, 1819, show a reception for Monroe as “a Brother of the Craft.” possibly a Master Mason in 1776.
Said of the Masonic president James Monroe, he was an “Episcopalian of deistic tendencies who valued civic virtues above religious doctrine.” Stating in his first inaugural address the concept of religious freedom, “boasting that Americans may worship ‘the Divine Author’ in any manner they choose.” From The Religion of James Monroe, in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn, 2003.