08/31/2026
🔨 TODAY IN MASONIC HISTORY
August 31, 1895 — Brother Ely S. Parker Passes to the Celestial Lodge Above
On this day in 1895, Ely Samuel Parker — Seneca leader, engineer, Civil War officer, government official, and Freemason — passed away at the age of 67.
His is one of the more remarkable stories in 19th-century American history.
Born in 1828 on the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation in western New York, Parker was known in Seneca as Ha-sa-no-an-da and later became widely known as Ely Samuel Parker.
He grew up fluent in both Seneca and English and received an education that placed him between two very different worlds at a time when Native Americans faced enormous legal and social barriers in the United States.
Parker studied law and worked in a law office, but there was a problem.
He could study the law.
He could understand the law.
But he could not fully participate in the profession.
As a Seneca man who was not recognized as a U.S. citizen, Parker was reportedly prevented from being admitted to the bar.
So he changed direction.
And became an engineer.
With assistance from his friend, anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, Parker studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and went on to work on projects connected with the Erie Canal and other public works.
That career eventually brought him to Galena, Illinois.
And there he met a man whose name would become inseparable from his own:
Ulysses S. Grant.
When the American Civil War erupted, Parker attempted to serve.
He reportedly tried to organize Iroquois volunteers and was rejected. He then sought a commission himself and again encountered barriers.
Eventually, through his connection with Grant, Parker entered military service as an engineer.
His abilities quickly became apparent.
Parker eventually served on Grant’s staff and became his military secretary and adjutant, handling important correspondence and paperwork.
Then came one of the defining moments of his life.
APPOMATTOX
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.
Ely Parker was there.
More importantly, Parker’s handwriting appears on the formal copies of the surrender terms prepared for Lee.
A Seneca man who had once struggled to serve a country that did not recognize him as a citizen helped put into writing the terms ending one of the bloodiest chapters in that country’s history.
There is also a famous story associated with that meeting.
Lee is said to have mistaken Parker for a Black man and remarked that he was glad to see “one real American” present.
Parker reportedly replied:
“We are all Americans.”
The precise wording and circumstances have been retold in different forms over the years, but the sentiment has become closely associated with Parker’s remarkable place at Appomattox.
Parker ultimately received the brevet rank of Brigadier General.
His relationship with Grant continued after the war.
When Grant became President of the United States, he appointed Parker Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1869.
Parker became the first Native American to hold that position.
Think about the extraordinary contradiction contained in that achievement.
A man who had once been denied opportunities because he was not legally considered an American citizen eventually became the federal government’s highest-ranking official responsible for Native American affairs.
His tenure was not without controversy, and Parker resigned in 1871.
He later entered business and suffered devastating financial losses following the Panic of 1873. He subsequently worked in public service in New York City.
But there is another part of Parker’s story that deserves remembering.
ELY PARKER THE FREEMASON
Parker’s connection with Freemasonry began while he was still a young man.
He was associated with Batavia Lodge No. 88 in New York and would maintain Masonic connections during his life in both New York and Illinois.
His Masonic journey reportedly extended beyond the Craft Lodge into the York Rite, including Chapter, Council, and Commandery.
That makes Parker’s story especially meaningful when viewed through the history of the fraternity.
Here was a Native American man living in an era when American law itself placed significant limitations upon him.
Yet within Freemasonry, he could sit in Lodge as a Brother.
His life crossed extraordinary boundaries:
Seneca and American.
Traditional culture and industrial America.
Law and engineering.
War and peace.
Tribal leadership and federal government.
And through it all, Freemasonry formed another thread running through his life.
Ely Samuel Parker died on August 31, 1895, in Fairfield, Connecticut.
He was eventually returned to the land of his people and reinterred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York, near the grave of Seneca leader Red Jacket.
His story deserves to be remembered for far more than his presence beside Grant at Appomattox.
He was an engineer.
A Seneca leader.
A soldier.
A diplomat and public servant.
A witness to history.
And a Brother.
Today in Masonic History, we remember Brother Ely Samuel Parker — a man who lived between worlds, broke through barriers, and left his handwriting quite literally upon American history.
🔨 Keep seeking Light.
— Blue Collar Freemason
