20 US presidents who belonged to secret societies

George Washington

Secret society: Freemasons

That’s factual. The predominant president of the US also took diagram to be rather taking into consideration a secret society.

George Washington used to be the country’s first ever Masonic president.

In Ron Chernow’s “Washington: A Life,” he notes that the long move president also can earn been drawn to the Masonic Narrate’s adherence to Enlightenment ideals.

Washington joined the Narrate of the Freemasons early in his life, coming into Fredericksburg Hotel No. 4 on the age of 20, per Mount Vernon’s legitimate web space. 

Masonic influences even got right here into play at Washington’s first inauguration. Throughout the ceremony, he swore his oath on a Bible from St. John’s Masonic Hotel No. 1 in Fresh York.

The first president’s Masonic ties followed him his complete life — and beyond. There’s even a George Washington Masonic Nationwide Memorial, which used to be dedicated in 1932 and finally accomplished in 1970.

Thomas Jefferson

Secret society: Flat Hat Membership Society

Thomas Jefferson also can earn been a member of the FHC. Society on the Faculty of William and Mary, but that would no longer mean he used to be impressed by the neighborhood.

In a single 1819 letter, the third US president reflected on his expertise within the secret society: “There existed a society known as the FHC society, confined to the choice of six students completely, of which I was a member, nevertheless it had no precious object. Nor get grasp of I do know whether or no longer it now exists.”

The initials FHC stood for “Fraternitas, Humanitas, et Cognitio” — Latin for “brotherhood, humanity, and records.” Nonetheless the neighborhood grew to change into referred to because the Flat Hat Membership, presumably a reference to the mortarboards students wore on the time.

Individuals known themselves with a secret handshake, alongside with a silver badge inscribed with the phrases “stabilitas et fides” (balance and faith, which is now the motto of William and Mary’s campus newspaper).

The neighborhood slightly out of the ordinary died out when the Revolutionary War interrupted lessons. Nonetheless, the title lived on with William and Mary’s pupil newspaper and the secret society itself re-surged in 1972, beneath the title the Flat Hat Membership.

Andrew Jackson

Secret society: Freemasons

Jackson’s website as a Mason indubitably grew to change into a serious political say all over his presidency.

In 1826, Mason had been implicated within the (light unsolved) kidnapping of a Fresh York man who threatened to bellow their secret rites. An anti-Masonic political birthday party shaped shortly after, claiming Masons had been detestable, elitist, and anti-democratic, Slate reported.

The Anti-Masonic Celebration stumbled on a pure foe in Jackson, who used to be no longer completely a Mason, but a excessive-ranked one. Jackson served because the grandmaster of the massive resort of Tennessee from 1822 to 1824.

James Okay. Polk

Secret society: Freemasons

In step with the “Lawsuits of the Vast Hotel of Kentucky,” the 11th president used to be initiated in Columbia Hotel No. 31, Columbia, Tennessee in 1820. He used to be 25 on the time and had correct been licensed to put collectively legislation.

Andrew Johnson

Secret society: Freemasons

In her biography on Johnson, historian Annette Gordon-Reed says that the gentle president remained a “proud Mason” all over his life and that “the native Masonic temple performed a gargantuan role within the funeral proceedings.”

Ulysses S. Grant

Secret society: Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows

18th US President and successfully-known Union basic Ulysses S. Grant belonged to a society known as the Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows.

The fraternal show has its roots in early as much as the moment Europe and used to be an offshoot off of England’s Abnormal Fellows. The American version of the organization used to be officially basically based in 1819 in Baltimore. The show centered on charitable causes and finally admitted each men and females as individuals.

In step with “The General’s Wife: The Life of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant,” Grant joined the Narrate after his accomplice grew to change into pregnant with their second baby.

“The Papers of U.S. Grant” characteristic an invite from the Narrate asking then-President Grant to relieve its 50th anniversary birthday party in Philadelphia in 1869.

James Garfield

Secret society: Freemasons

Garfield completely served a few months of his presidency earlier than being assassinated. He had a lengthier tenure within the Freemasons.

In step with the “Lawsuits of the Vast Hotel of Kentucky,” he used to be initiated into Magnolia Hotel No. 20 in Columbus, Ohio in 1861, and went on to bring collectively “the Capitular and Templar degrees, and other folks of the Hotel of Perfection within the Scottish Ceremony.”

Rutherford Hayes

Secret society: Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows

An inventory of Hayes’ speeches exhibits that the 19th president spoke to gatherings of Abnormal Fellows 5 cases from 1850 to 1887.

In his 1887 speech in Fremont, Ohio, where he ushered within the appointment of new Abnormal Fellow officers, Hayes discussed his earn feelings relating to the show and completely different societies luxuriate in it:

“The vital societies, recurrently known as secret societies (essentially, they are secret mainly in title, and secret completely to guard against imposture) … earn beneath the an analogous friendly roof in terminate intimacy persons differing extensively in occupation, politics, faith, and prerequisites of life and fuse them with out issues and naturally into complete solidarity and cordial friendship.”

William McKinley

Secret society: Freemasons, Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows

McKinley succeeded Garfield as each the next Masonic president and the next president to be assassinated.

Roadside The US facets a put up documenting the positioning where McKinley used to be first initiated as a Mason while combating for the Union all around the Civil War. His Masonic legacy lives on on the unusual time, as the resort he as soon as belonged to is now named after him.

McKinley also belonged to the Abnormal Fellows, luxuriate in Hayes and Grant.

Theodore Roosevelt

Secret society: Freemasons, Concatenated Narrate of Hoo-Hoo

The Theodore Roosevelt Center has digitized many of the 26th president’s letters — some of which reference his Masonic activities.

President Roosevelt addressed the Vast Hotel of Pennsylvania in 1902 on the anniversary of Washington’s initiation. In his speech, he reflected on some of his earn reasons for becoming a member of the Freemasons:

“One amongst the things that attracted me so vastly to Masonry, that I hailed the chance of fixing into a mason, used to be that it indubitably did act as much as what we, as a government and as a other folks, are pledged to — of treating each man on his merits as a person. When Brother George Washington went into a resort of the fraternity, he went into the one diagram within the USA where he stood beneath or above his fellows per their legitimate diagram within the resort. He went into the diagram where the postulate of our government used to be realized so far because it is humanly that you just may possibly well perchance agree with for mankind to attain a lofty idea.”

Nonetheless, Roosevelt also with out note met occasional snags with the society. In his letters, he chastised one alleged Mason for attempting to make divulge of his diagram within the society for political advantage (which is against the foundations of Freemasonry), and complained about every other say in a letter to a chum, writing that one foe used to be “… endeavoring to make divulge of Masonry to my political jam.”

After his presidency, Roosevelt wrote about touring the arena and visiting Masonic resorts in Nairobi and the Azores.

Roosevelt wasn’t correct a Mason, nevertheless. He also belonged to the comparatively vague Global Concatenated Narrate of Hoo-Hoo. As Wooded discipline History Society blogger Amanda T. Ross writes: “The Hoo-Hoos resemble much less an odd secret society and extra a industry fraternity.” It used to be a fraternal organization for men within the walk industry, and boasted Theodore Roosevelt as one among its most successfully-known individuals, attributable to his conservation work.

William Taft

Secret society: Freemasons, Cranium and Bones

Taft presumably stumbled on entrance into Cranium and Bones rather with out issues. His father, gentle Attorney General Alphonso Taft, cofounded Cranium and Bones as a Yale pupil in 1832.

Taft later grew to change into a Mason in 1909, about a month earlier than his inauguration.

The 1912 file book “Lawsuits of the Vast Hotel of Free and Popular Masons of the Narrate of Fresh York” mentions that Taft, as “president of the most attention-grabbing and mightiest Republic of the arena,” used to be making divulge of Masonic principals in his makes an attempt to address world affairs.

Warren Harding

Secret society: Freemasons, Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows, Concatenated Narrate of Hoo-Hoo

Harding, the 29th president, used to be a member of three secret societies already mentioned on this list.

He used to be first initiated as an “entered apprentice” with the Masons on June 28, 1901 in Marion Hotel No. 70 in Marion, Ohio. He wasn’t officially declared a grasp mason for every other 19 years.

The timing of his acceptance correct took diagram to coincide with Harding’s presidential marketing campaign — and subsequent victory.

A paper by Mason and researcher John R. Tester essential aspects Harding’s long-thwarted quest to rise within the secret fraternal society. Tester theorizes that the reasons for Harding’s delayed promotion also can earn been attributable to political prejudices or rumors about his Unlit ancestry. Most Masonic resorts refused to admit African American citizens for out of the ordinary of US history.

Harding seemed as if it would earn a extra efficient time as a member of the Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows.

 A 1921 edition of the Chicago Lumberman also lists Harding as being a member of the Concatenated Narrate of Hoo-Hoo.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Secret society: Freemasons, Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows

Roosevelt used to be first initiated as a Mason in 1911. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum’s legitimate weblog facets several ancient gives touching on the three-duration of time president’s participation within the society.

One excerpt from a 1935 press conference facets Roosevelt’s myth of a Mason-associated prank he pulled on then-Securities and Alternate Commission Chairman Joseph Kennedy (the daddy of future president John F. Kennedy). 

The day after the click conference, Roosevelt performed a ceremony initiating his two sons on the Architect Hotel. Afterwards, the president gave a speech praising the society: “To me, the ceremonies of Freemasonry in this divulge of ours, especially these later ones that I indubitably earn taken phase in, regularly construct me wish that extra American citizens, in every phase of our land, may possibly possibly change into connected with our fraternity.”

However the Masonic Narrate wasn’t the completely secret membership that FDR used to be a member of —he also belonged to the Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows, as Houstonia Magazine reported.

Harry Truman

Secret society: Freemasons, Unprejudiced Narrate of Abnormal Fellows

Truman used to be very eager with the Freemasons — essentially, the 33rd president helped stumbled on a Masonic Hotel in Belton, Missouri in 1911 and used to be elected its first grasp, per the Truman Library.

It appears to be like, Truman’s resort hall burned down while he used to be serving in WWI, but he persisted to rise within the Freemasons all around the 1920s.

The Truman Library cited one observer’s overview of Truman’s management talents within the society on the time: “He did a upright job within the resort work … He used to be a upright resort man.”

Later, all over his presidency, he remained a dedicated Mason. The Fresh York Times reported that Truman’s “completely jewelry used to be a double-band gold Masonic ring on the limited finger of his left hand.” The Truman Library also experiences that in 1945 Truman grew to change into the completely president to bought the 33rd degree of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Ceremony.

He is also declared to earn been a member of the Abnormal Fellows, despite the incontrovertible reality that this is never any longer indubitably nearly as documented.

Richard Nixon

Secret society: The Narrate of the Red Friars

Founded in 1913, The Narrate of the Red Friars used to be a semi-secret society at Duke University. Fresh individuals had been initiated, or “tapped” by a member of the Narrate donned in a red hood and robe. The society used to be apparently invested in bettering life on campus.

There isn’t any longer any longer out of the ordinary records about what Nixon did as a member of the Narrate, but Duke University’s library lists him as a member. The Narrate voluntarily disbanded in 1971, completely a 300 and sixty five days earlier than the Watergate burglary space a sequence of occasions in motion that would unravel Nixon’s presidency.

Gerald Ford

Secret Society: Freemasons

To this level, Gerald Ford has been the last known Masonic president. He used to be initiated to the show in 1949, in Columbia Hotel No. 3 in D.C.

That very same 300 and sixty five days, Ford indubitably helped preside over the revealing of the Masonic memorial honoring George Washington.

Ford’s speech on the event, which used to be later printed in his public papers, featured some reflections on his earn Masonic scuttle.

“When I took my duty as a grasp mason — incidentally, with my three younger brothers — I recalled the cost my earn father connected to that Narrate. But I had no theory that I’d ever be added to the company of the Father of our country and 12 completely different individuals of the show who also served as Presidents of the USA. Masonic rules — interior, no longer external — and our show’s imaginative and prescient of duty to country and acceptance of God as Supreme Being and guiding gentle earn sustained me all over my years of government provider.”

George H.W. Bush

Secret society: Cranium and Bones

Sooner than George H.W. Bush grew to change into the second Bonesman to desire the Oval Put of job, he used to be also a pilot in WWII and served as ambassador to Communist China, director of the CIA, and vp to Ronald Reagan.

As president all around the give up of the Frigid War, Bush supported diagram exploration. The American other folks earn also criticized and exalted his involvement within the Gulf War, critically Operation Barren region Storm.

George W. Bush

Secret society: Cranium and Bones

Bush’s family title had change into synonymous with Cranium and Bones by the level he arrived on Yale’s campus. There earn been rumors that Bush practically uncared for getting tapped by the neighborhood, but he ended up changing into the third Bonesman to change into president. 

“My senior 300 and sixty five days I joined Cranium and Bones, a secret society, so secret I will not remark one thing extra,” Bush wrote in his 1999 autobiography, “A Fee to Support.” Bush, nevertheless, carries a obvious disdain for Yale’s imprint of East Fly elitism, as The Atlantic identified.