The Grand Lodge of Kansas is the governing body of Freemasonry in Kansas, formed March 17, 1856, nearly five years before Kansas statehood. In 1854, three Wyandot Indians and five white settlers – all of whom were Masons – coalesced in what is now Wyandotte County, Kansas, and petitioned the Grand Lodge of Missouri to establish a Lodge of Masons in a Wyandot Indian village. On August 4, 1854, th
e dispensation was granted and one week later Kansas Lodge U.D. (eventually to become Wyandotte Lodge No. 3) opened for work. Within two years, two other lodges in Kansas were formed and in 1856 the trio formed the Grand Lodge of Kansas as America’s Civil War loomed. Notably, the first master of Kansas Lodge U.D. was John Milton Chivington, a Methodist missionary to the Wyandot and a vocal opponent of slavery. Chivington left Kansas in 1860, became an officer in the Union army and was later celebrated as a hero for his part in the Battle of Glorieta Pass (1862). His orchestration of the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), however, earned him universal condemnation and ultimately made him infamous. The influence of Missouri Masonry in Kansas resulted in not a few curious situations. In the bloody 1850’s and the years of the Civil war, Kansas was continually torn by bitter strife [over slavery], members of the two factions hunting down and slaying each other. Yet, whenever enough Brethren, regardless of faction, could be found they eagerly stood their guns against the nearest tree and began the er****on of a Masonic altar. Enemies by day, they met as Brothers at Night.
– F. Strickland, Transactions, The American Lodge of Research, Vol. III, No. 3, p. 485.
