02/03/2018
Frank S. Land “Dad”, 33° Freemason
1890 - 1959
Frank created the Order of DeMolay on March 24th, 1919 in Kansas City, Missouri as an international fraternal organization for young men ages twelve to twenty-one. It is not required to go through DeMolay to become a Freemason later.
The crown appearing in the self-adopted heraldic arms ( the emblem ) of the Order, contains ten rubies, each representing one of the original nine members and the organization's founder, Frank. The rubies were originally portrayed as pearls, but as each founding member died, the pearl representing him was changed to a ruby.
The Order was named in honor of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights I Templar. He and his knights had been wrongfully accused of heresy and other crimes by King Philip IV and was aided by Pope Clement V. Grand Master Jacques and sixty of his senior knights were tortured into false confessions.
Jacques de Molay declared that King Philip and Pope Clement would soon answer to God for what they had done. It wasn't long after his death that his declaration of judgement came to pass.
Jacques de Molay was burnt at the stake on March 18th, 1314.
Pope Clement died on April 20th, 1314.
King Philip died on November 29th, 1314.
Jacques de Molay and his knights were absolved in a letter written by Pope Clement V in August of 1308 after he had done his own investigation, but chose to hide the letter out of fear of King Philip. The letter wasn’t found until September of 2001.
Friday, October 13th, 2017, marked seven hundred and ten years since the day ( Friday, October 13th, 1307 ) that King Philip had Jacques and sixty of his knights arrested in France.
The charcoal portrait of Frank was created by Brother, Travis Simpkins.
The two pictures and the very informative essay were put together by Brother David Owens. Thank you for all you do for Masonry Brother Owens.
