A History Kept.
History is not a page on this website — it is the foundation. What follows is a working archive of who we have been, drawn from the lodge's own journals and from the ongoing research of its members.
Long-form articles from the archive.
Explore the people, places, events, and traditions that shaped Lafayette Lodge No. 34, Fayette County, and early Texas Freemasonry.
Stephen Townsend: A Life on the Texas Frontier
Charter member of Lafayette Lodge No. 34 — soldier of San Jacinto, first sheriff of Colorado County, and one of the men who built Fayette County out of open prairie.
Stephen Townsend rode with William P. Smith at San Jacinto, wore the first sheriff's badge of Colorado County, helped charter three Masonic lodges in the Republic-era Hill Country, and was murdered on the street in Round Top in October of 1850. This is his story, drawn from lodge minutes, county records, and the newspapers of his day.
Joel Robison: The Fayette County Mason Who Captured Santa Anna
Texas Ranger, San Jacinto veteran, early Fayette County settler, and one of the men who changed the course of Texas history.
On the morning after the Battle of San Jacinto, a young Georgia-born patrolman named Joel Robison rode out to gather stragglers — and rode back with the President of Mexico on his horse. Robison would later settle in Fayette County, join Lafayette Lodge No. 34, and serve the Republic as one of Sam Houston's first Texas Rangers.
Swante Palm: The Scholar Who Helped Preserve Texas History
Charter member of Lafayette Lodge No. 34, educator, librarian, and donor of one of the most significant private collections in Texas.
A Swedish immigrant who landed at Galveston in 1844, Swante Palm became a La Grange merchant, a charter member of Lafayette Lodge No. 34, an Austin postmaster, a knighted vice consul for Norway — and the donor of more than 10,000 books and images to the University of Texas, expanding the young school's collection by more than sixty percent.