Walter J. Klein, 33°

This manuscript is suitable for reading by Masons and non-Masons

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The most remarkable Masonic building in the two Carolinas is without question the Hezekiah Alexander rock house at 3500 Shamrock Drive in Charlotte. It is part of the Charlotte Museum of History complex that also includes The American Freedom Bell.
      It is one of the oldest freestanding Masonic meeting halls in America. Indeed, it might well be considered a national Masonic shrine, unique in this nation.
      The Hezekiah Alexander house is worthy of the closest inspection and profound study by all visitors, but especially by brother Master Masons. Its story is filled with drama and hidden mysteries.
      One of the founders of Charlotte, Hez started it in 1769 as an elegant new residence for his wife, many children and himself—and as a meeting place for his brother Masons. He finished it in 1774. He was 46 years old.
      In a village that George Washington called a “trifling place,” this monumental house stood out as the only stone building in the center of the community. Around it were rudimentary log structures owned by settlers paying as little as 22 cents an acre to start life anew. Even the courthouse where the famous Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was proclaimed the following spring was built of wood.

His earlier life

Trace Hez’s grandfather Joseph back to Manokin Presbyterian Church on the eastern shore of Maryland in the 1670s. His father James, a magistrate, had 15 children.
      Hez was born in Cecil County, Maryland, in 1728. He was learning the blacksmithing trade for four years starting in 1745. In 1750 he moved to the Cumberland valley of Pennsylvania. Two years later he married Mary Sample.
      In 1754 he faced two years of Indian attacks. He and Mary started over in New Castle County, Delaware, in 1757.
     There was a procession of a thousand wagons, a massive movement southward that Hezekiah Alexander and his many relatives joined. In 1767 Hez was driving one of those wagons 536 miles to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He brought with him his wife, their first six children, memories of his past and ambitious plans for a future that would change history.
      The people of North Carolina witnessed Hez becoming a prime developer of Charlotte, chief justice, builder of its jail, Queens College founder, farmer, blacksmith, leader of the Alexander family, active Mason and by 1790 one of the wealthiest men in the state.

Rebirth of the house of his past

It surprises most who hear of it that this Charlotte house is a virtual duplicate of the one Alexander lived in and owned for many years. It seems evident this blacksmith wanted to raise his children in a replication of his life in Peters Township, PA.
      An illustration of that earlier building, called the Richard Bard Mansion after a later owner, appears in The Bard Family, a rare book by G. O. Seilhamer recently obtained from the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in Washington. Published in 1908, it is copy number 201 of only 300 printed. Page 191 displays artwork of the house described in Hezekiah Alexander and the Revolution in the Backcountry, the definitive 1987 book by Dr. Norris Preyer of Charlotte:
     “There is a picture of a stone house…which stands on a tract in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, that formerly belonged to Hezekiah. It looks exactly like Hezekiah’s Charlotte house being a two-story stone house with the same type chimneys on each end, the same window arrangement even to the two little windows in the attic, and it has similar cornices over the windows and the door in front…”

      More is revealed in Pennsylvania surveys, maps and deeds still on public record. Hezekiah was the first settler on his property. His name appears as owner on Cumberland County tax lists in 1751. The Bard name did not surface until years later when Hezekiah was already living in Charlotte.
      His Pennsylvania home faced exactly south. That suggests Hezekiah might have incised Masonic signs and symbols on that building first, opening that residence to brother Masons to meet there as he did later in Charlotte.
      The illustration is all that remains of the earlier house. The Bard Family describes its ultimate fate: “Where the road from Lemaster to Upton crosses the Warm Springs road leading to Church-hill, in Peters township, about two miles southwest of Williamson, are the ruins of an old mansion that was for many years the home of Richard Bard.
      “The house was burned a few years ago.”

It was Hez’s idea and Hez who did it all

      Hezekiah brought a wagonload of family on his drive to Charlotte. And here that family kept growing, first in a wood house and then in the stone house.
      Actually there were four stone residential structures built in the 1770s, at different places within Mecklenburg County. They were the John and Mary Price house of 1770, the elegant Ezekiel Wallace (Wallis) house of 1778, the Robinson house, date unknown, the ruins of which still survive, and of course the Hezekiah Alexander house completed in 1774. All had to come from the workshop of William and Samuel Bigham, since theirs was the only stonecutting operation around. This information comes from Prof. Dan Patterson of UNC Chapel Hill, who researched early Mecklenburg stonecutting for his latest book.
      After more than five years of construction by the Bigham family shop of stonemasons and slave labor, Alexander saved his crowning touches until last.
      He performed the task himself: personally chipping out many Masonic signs and symbols across the face of his “palace,” as some called it then. He was no artisan in stone like the non-Masons who built his new house. But he certainly was an artisan in metals, and his blacksmithing tools served him as he mounted his mighty ladder to inscribe Masonic signs and symbols across his new house.

      Now as a Mason Hez knew from his solemn obligation that he was never to compromise Masonic secrets by writing or inscribing them publicly. So he devised clever markings that would communicate exclusively to brethren information that would tell them that this is a Masonic meeting hall. His designs worked perfectly because he used them not only to earn admiration from fellow Masons but to test visitors who professed to be Masons wishing to associate and meet with others. Rather than question them, he would walk them around his great new house and ask them if they recognized things only a Mason would understand.
      Indeed, even today learned Freemasons have stumbled as they try to interpret Hezekiah Alexander’s inscriptions. In preparing an article for the September, 2000, National Geographic about the Masonic house in Charlotte, Mary Jennings, staff writer, contacted Nelson King for his opinion, who answered, “Having quickly look (sic) at the work you sent me all I can say it is a great piece of fiction…” How wrong he was.

       The square-and-compasses emblem of today, still evolving in 1774, does not appear outside Hez’s house. Instead, he used the earlier French design which also imposes a square over compasses. A modest sign on the stairway uses a variation of the regular square-and-compasses to show Masons that this is the way to the meeting room. It can be seen as a clever blend of the letter M, for Mason, and the square-and-compasses.
      Another of Hez’s signs clearly shows two balls and a cane—unmistakable to any and all Masons. Likewise, the trowel next to the square-and-compasses speaks for itself.
      The illustration of a heart with three points within it combines two well-known Masonic symbols. Next to it is what may be interpreted as a crown-like symbol of a lodge master sitting in the east as King Solomon. Still another design could have been Hez’ way of conveying a cable tow, the word degree and the number seven. Masons can put the three together for special meaning.
      Two other inscriptions relate not to Freemasonry directly but to the year 1774 and to the British flag of the time. Other markings are yet to be understood, leaving it to Masons of today and tomorrow to ponder with wonder over the greatness of Hezekiah Alexander.
     A most startling surprise comes when any Mason walks away from the front of the Hezekiah Alexander house and turns around. What is special about what I see? he asks of himself. Why, those inscriptions are not randomly positioned at all! If a Mason envisions the front of the house as a floor plan of any and all Masonic lodges, he suddenly sees the symbols inscribed only at places and stations: master, senior warden, junior warden, senior deacon, junior deacon and tyler. And there is no inscription in the north. Thus the front of the Hezekiah Alexander house is, in reality, a diagram of all Masonic lodges worldwide! It should come as no surprise to a Mason to learn that the building was constructed exactly facing south. Thus the face of the house perfectly forms the map of a Masonic lodge, with the master truly in the east, the senior warden truly in the west and the junior warden truly in the south. To any Mason out of millions worldwide, this is not guesswork. It is inescapable fact.

Hezekiah Alexander Knew of Tubal Cain

      The blacksmith who figures so powerfully in the origin of the city of Charlotte knew about Tubal Cain from his reading of the Bible and as a Freemason. In Genesis, Ezekiel and First Chronicles he knew the name of Tubal Cain, son of Lamech and Zillah who, according to Masonic tradition, was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron—a blacksmith.
      Hezekiah's Masonic life surely brought praiseworthy comparison of his blacksmith trade to that of Tubal Cain, the priceless character in the Masonic degrees known to millions of Masons. Today docents say Hez fashioned the locks and hinges on his house.

Buried treasure?

      “Suspected cavity in the southwest corner” is the way Robert F. Melia reported it.
      His Kenner, Louisiana, firm was retained May 21-23, 2000, by the Board of the Charlotte Museum of History to take aerial and ground thermal images—infrared photos--of the Hezekiah Alexander house and land. One discovery raised eyebrows: the cornerstone appears to hide something next to it. It is a universal tradition for Masons to lay and dedicate cornerstones of important civic buildings, from the U.S. capitol to courthouses across the nation. So it is possible Hez called on his brethren to do the same for his new house. The contents usually included newspapers of the day, sentimental jewelry, meeting minutes mentioning the event, names and positions of those attending the ceremony and their signatures.
     Engineers were consulted about protecting the integrity of the building while stonemasons removed the cornerstone and one adjacent stone. They planned to station a large piece of equipment to stabilize the southwest corner while Board members examined the find.
    That image was too much for the Board. Although they were assured the proposed procedure was safe and academic, they said No,Thanks and the engineers were sent on their way. So the dream of removing hidden artifacts goes on.
   The thermal imaging project also revealed two possible blacksmith shops and smokehouses, a possible 120-foot tunnel, foundations of two outbuildings, wagon road, possible cistern, plow scars, carriage turnaround and unmarked graves.
     The tunnel was supposedly dug as an escape route, first from Indians and later from the British. Hez’s house was in fact a focus of revolutionary activity before war broke out. No dangerous plans could be overheard by strangers there.

The portable mosaic floor

    Through many years a modest red and white oilcloth floated around the Hez house. No person on the site could identify it or understand its use. It carried the mosaic pattern of a checkerboard, nothing more. All Masons immediately identify with it.

Masons meeting in a house?

     Does a residence properly serve as a place for Masons to meet? Read what Dr. George Oliver, English Masonic authority, wrote: “A Masonic Hall should be isolated, and if possible, surrounded with lofty walls, so as to be included in a court, and apart from any other buildings, to preclude the possibility of being overlooked by cowans and eavesdroppers. As, however, such a situation in large towns can seldom be obtained, the Lodge should be formed in an upper story; and if there be any contiguous buildings, the windows should be either in the roof, or very high from the floor…” Hez’s house fits these conditions nicely, especially considering Charlottetown was an outpost in 1774 with precious few inhabitants and Masons were rare, indeed. There was no lodge of record yet, nor any official Masonic meeting hall. Phalanx 31, first lodge in Charlotte, was not formed until October 4, 1779, under a regimental warrant issued by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania to the 4th NC contingent in the Continental army authorizing Lodge 20. The word Phalanx is a war word unique in all Masonry.
      Were Masons meeting in the Hezekiah Alexander house in formal lodge meetings or just socially as common-interest friends? The answer is remarkably obvious. Hez had sat in lodge in Pennsylvania with friends and relatives who came to Charlotte with him. Other Masons enjoyed being qualified by a walk with Hez around his rock house. It was an entertaining and unforgettable experience for them that introduced them Masonically to the meetings held upstairs.
      Two mighty Masonic cities, Philadelphia and Charleston, fed the new village of Charlotte not only with vital commercial supplies but with Masons who knew their catechism and who could readily sit in any chair in a lodge meeting.

Charlotte’s early Masons

    To illustrate which Masons could be seen in Hezekiah Alexander’s house in their day, consider the first attorney general of North Carolina, Waightstill Avery, appointed January 12, 1778. A graduate of the predecessor of Princeton University, he rented a room in Hezekiah Alexander’s first and second houses in Charlotte while traveling the state as legal counsel and surveyor. He later moved to Rutherford County where he served as master of Fellowship 14.
      Two of the three United States Masonic presidents born in North Carolina came from the Charlotte area: Andrew Jackson and James Knox Polk.
     When President George Washington made his 1,880-mile trip through the South in the spring of 1791, he dined with Hezekiah Alexander and others, including two of his daughters, at the home of Colonel Thomas Polk beside the courthouse at the square in Charlotte.
    We know at least the following Mec Dec signers were Masons: Hezekiah Alexander, Abraham Alexander, John McKnitt Alexander, Thomas Polk, Waightstill Avery, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, Robert Irwin and David Reese. Hezekiah’s cousin Nathaniel Alexander was one of the Masons who petitioned for the charter of Phalanx Lodge 31, first in Charlotte. In the North Carolina Grand Lodge he held the offices of Senior Grand Deacon, Junior Grand Warden and Grand Marshal between 1797 and 1803. Then he served as Governor of North Carolina from 1805 to 1807, US Congressman and US Senator. His wife? The daughter of Colonel Thomas Polk.
     Dr. Nathaniel Alexander sat in Phalanx 31 lodge in Charlotte before 1800 along with James Connor, Thomas Davidson, Joseph Dickson, James Houston, Samuel Lowrie, William Polk, Robert Smith and Charles Wright. This from Launching the Craft by Thomas Parramore, 1975.
     William Davidson, famed father of Phalanx lodge 31, lies in the First Presbyterian Church cemetery in uptown Charlotte beneath a large monument the final line of which reads, “So mote it be”---the Masonic amen.
     And there were Montford Stokes, Simon Nathan, Reverend Hugh McAden and Reverend Alexander MacWhorter.
     Anyone who doubts that Hezekiah Alexander’s home was Charlotte’s Masonic meeting hall should be asked just where he or she thinks the above early Charlotte Masons did meet.

What Hez looked like

Morphed Photo of Hezekiah Alexander

Hezekiah Alexander's signature

      We know what great Charlotte Masons such as President Andrew Jackson and President James Knox Polk looked like because history has given us photographs and fine oil portraits of both.

Portrait of Andrew Jackson

Portrait of James K. Polk

      But most early Mecklenburg Masons left no records of their countenances. Not taking that lying down, resourceful folks at the Charlotte Museum of History came up with a clever way to approximate the face of Hezekiah Alexander. “We know more about Alexander the Great’s appearance 2,300 years ago than we do about Hezekiah Alexander 230 years ago,” they said. They assembled five descendants of Hezekiah’s immediate ancestors, took full-face photos of them all and enlisted a computer whiz to morph them into one!
      The five Charlotte citizens who stepped forward to make history were John Belk, one of North Carolina’s most famous Masons; Ted Alexander; John Van Hanford; Sutton Alexander and Cyrus Morrison Alexander. The balanced mix of all five portraits produced the reincarnated Hez shown herein—clothed authentically in pre-revolution dress seen in Mecklenburg. It immediately drew praise as having the “right family look” by Hezekiah’s descendant and Museum board member Betty Nisbet.
      Sadly, when time came to interpret that portrait as a statue, a few were uncomfortable placing Hez’s name on it. So the small statue ended up as a nameless old-timer on Museum grounds. Just as well. The statue depicts a slight, slope-shouldered man, not at all matching Hez’s reputation as a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered blacksmith.

Plans of the house

      The plans and specifications of the Franklin County, PA, predecessor house are lost in time. So are original documents of the surviving Hezekiah Alexander house in Charlotte. The complex nature of the building, such as its tapered walls, is testimony that detailed plans and specifications did in fact exist at one time, from which the Bigham family of stonemasons could work.
      In recent years at least two sets of post-construction plans have been drawn. The first, consisting only of three simplified floor plan sheets, was drawn by J. E. Stegall, AIA/FSCI June 12, 1992. Drawn to ¼ inch scale, no dimensions are shown and the user is cautioned to verify them on site. There is no mention of the fourth level, the attic.
      A decade later Jean G. Surratt, AIA, chief architect of the Belk department store chain, who had managed a staff of 40 to plan hundreds of retail stores, was asked to provide the Charlotte Museum of History with a set of detailed plans of the Hezekiah Alexander rock house. To have such a treasured document, representing hundreds of work hours, would be an achievement in North Carolina history.
      Surratt said yes. His fee was zero. His outstanding work—nine parchment 18 x 24 sheets, also drawn to ¼ inch scale, with 50 technical 8x10-inch photographs--proved to be a priceless gift to Charlotte, to North Carolina and to history.
      There was something else, something strange and eerie. If you were to watch Jean Surratt all alone on his ladder, high up the sides of that stone house, day after day, painfully taking measurements and photos, your eyes could play tricks on you and make you think you are seeing Hezekiah Alexander 229 years earlier, all alone on his ladder, high up the sides of that same stone house, day after day, painfully chipping Masonic symbols…
      What’s inside the house? Tens of thousands of people have visited this oldest standing residence in Mecklenburg. It has changed hands, ownership and uses between 1774 and today. Most visitors get to see only the main level. Relatively few have taken the narrow, steep stairs to see “upstairs.” Still fewer have ever beheld the cellar or attic. For that matter, most people are surprised to hear the Hezekiah Alexander house actually has four levels rather than two or three.
      The below-grade cellar has the earth for its floor. There are two large storage areas, access doors, the bottom of three chimneys, stairway—and that’s all. The first floor is the big show: entrance hall, parlor, bedroom and keeping room. Corner fireplaces enhance all but the entrance hall. All have windows. The second floor contains four bedrooms—agreeable until one wonders where Hezekiah and his wife fitted eleven children* plus a guest. And one of those upstairs bedrooms had to be evacuated every time Charlotte’s first Masonic lodge met (remember the stairway sign leading Masons to the second floor.) The attic might well have housed several beds; it is an open, unimproved but safe area.
      The furnishings of today are as accurate and appropriate as historians can assemble.
      There are 3,712 square feet of floor space within Hez’s house.

*William, James, Silas, Esther, Mary, Hezekiah Jr., Amos, Keziah, Joel, Oswald and Joseph

Where it is situated in Charlotte

      Why Hez chose this location testifies to his wisdom and the realities of the 1760s. It was, in fact, one terminus of the great road from Philadelphia to Charleston. The infrared photographs reveal many circles where wagons drove the trail to end a long trip. It is three miles from the square, but that uptown section quickly found itself divided into lots for log residences, stores and civic buildings. We have a map showing names of all the owners.
      What happened is ably reported, again by Dr. Norris Preyer in Hezekiah Alexander and the Revolution in the Backcountry. “The need for a larger house for his growing family had been evident to Hezekiah for some time. By 1771 there were, including Waightstill Avery, eleven people living in the earlier home, and two more sons would be born in the next four years. Instead of adding on to that first house, Hezekiah had in mind to build an entirely new structure and place it on the adjoining tract of land he had bought in 1769. One reason for doing this was the better location of the newer tract. Running south from Salisbury was the Indian trading path which forked a few miles to the north of Alexander’s land. One branch ran southwest to Charlotte, while the other fork passed through Hezekiah’s newer tract on its way to the Waxhaws.
      “Hezekiah decided to place his new house on a hilltop facing due south with the Indian trail running directly in front of it. The land dropped away to the east and north to the Mill Creek, on the far side of which there arose another steep hill with a spring at the base. Here Alexander constructed a two-story stone springhouse, using the running water to cool perishables placed on the stone floor. The upper story might have held a loom for weaving or it could have served as quarters for servants.
      “The first homes of the Mecklenburg settlers had been built of logs, but with the wilderness overcome there was now time to construct finer dwellings. Thomas Polk erected in Charlotte a large two-story frame house with brick chimneys on each end. Hezekiah decided that his new dwelling would be a two-story stone house similar to the better homes he had seen in the middle colonies... The actual construction took several years for the pinkish granite stone had to be laboriously excavated from what would be the basement, with additional stone being quarried from the hillside across the creek. After the basement was finished, two-foot thick stone walls were laid and mortared, with the house’s two chimneys built flush into the gabled end walls. As the structure rose, huge timbered beams were inserted into the walls to support the floors and roof.
      “A stonemason must have supervised the house’s construction, for his artistry is still evident in the circular design he worked into the stone under the western eaves, and in the cornices placed over the doors and windows. The cost of construction was expensive, and it was probably because Hezekiah’s funds were running low that, in September of 1773, he sold the 535 acres of land that he had accumulated in Pennsylvania. Included in the sale was the original one hundred acre tract where, more than twenty years earlier, he and Mary Sample had begun their married life.
      “In 1774 the house was at last completed and this date was carved upon the cornerstone and on a keystone over a first floor window…Elsewhere, on the window cornices of the first floor and on two stones on corners of the second floor, the stonemason carved various Masonic symbols; among them are a T-square, a trowel, a calipher, a heart, and a carpenter’s plane. The presence of so many Masonic symbols would indicate that Hezekiah had joined this order, so in harmony with the Enlightenment’s belief that there was a moral law that could be apprehended by human reason.

Inside

      “The interior of the house followed the architectural practices of the middle colonies, in that the front door opened not into a central hall but into an entry room on the east front. Such a room was designed to keep out the winter cold and to prevent the dwelling’s heat from escaping outside. A boxed staircase to one’s right led to the second floor, and beside it was a door which led outside to the springhouse at the bottom of the hill. Those having business with Hezekiah as a justice of the peace probably waited in the entry room until they could see him in the parlor on the west front of the house. The parlor was the principal room for entertaining guests and contained a fireplace angled into the house’s western wall. This was done so that a similarly angled fireplace in Hezekiah’s and Mary’s bedroom, directly behind the parlor, could share the same chimney.
      “To the rear of the entry room was the common room containing the largest fireplace in the home. Here the family took their meals and probably did most of their domestic chores. A door on the rear wall of this room led outside to a log building in which was placed the kitchen and laundry…”

NC Grand Lodge meets inside Hezekiah’s house

     Now jump ahead two centuries. At a public auction May 5, 1890, Hez’s house went to Joseph Reid for $2,300. In 1949 the Methodist Home signed a 99-year lease for 2.19 acres including the Hez House and spring house. In 1968 five local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution began a study and commitment to restore it, for which the Queen City remains deeply grateful.
      At 4:00pm, November 5, 1999, the Grand Lodge of Masons of North Carolina formally met within the Hezekiah Alexander house in Charlotte for the purpose of dedicating the site of The American Freedom Bell nearby.
     Those present included the following 13 officers who duly executed their obligations: Charles M. Ingram, Grand Master; George M. Smith, DDGM 40, Deputy Grand Master Pro-tem; Robert K. Braswell, DDGL 41, Deputy Grand Master Pro-tem; Boyd. N. McGee, DDGL 40, Junior Grand Warden Pro-tem; Michael R. Davis, DDGM 41, Grand Treasurer, Pro-tem; T. Walton Clapp III, Grand Secretary; John W. Pope, Senior Deacon 261, Senior Grand Deacon, Pro-tem; Ted L. Conder, DDGL 41, Junior Grand Deacon Pro-tem; Larry E. Sizemore, DDGL 42, Grand Marshal Pro-tem; David Patrick McKenzie, Grand Steward Pro-tem; John Edwin Fullagar III, Grand Steward Pro-tem; David C. Carriker, PM and Current Secretary, Excelsior 261, Grand Tyler Pro-tem; and H. Bland Clontz, Chaplain, Excelsior 261, Grand Chaplain Pro-tem.

How Charlotte Masons ended 230 years of bickering
over the Mec Dec

      The finest hour for Mecklenburg Masons came September 19, 2004, when they declared they had seen enough.
      Former NC Governor James G. Martin and Former Charlotte Mayor John M. Belk were the first to sign the Declaration of Mecklenburg Masons to honor their brave fraternal ancestors who signed the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence May 20, 1775.
      Then a long line of Charlotte Masonic leaders waited at the door of The Hezekiah Alexander Homesite to add their signatures. They were lodge masters, lecturers, district deputies, Scottish Rite leaders, York Rite leaders, Shrine leaders. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. It was time to sign a new document to end an old dispute:
      “We Freemasons of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, wishing to bring lasting peace to two centuries of concern about validity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May 20, 1775, hereby attest to the honor and integrity of all brothers who signed that document. Their oath is our oath. Their signatures and ours are as one.
      “In this sacred structure, where Masons lived and met from 1774, we solemnly sign this declaration of fraternal unity and faith. This, this 19th day of September, 2004, in sight of the Supreme Architect, within the Hezekiah Alexander Homesite, Charlotte, North Carolina.” Signed by Governor James G. Martin, John M. Belk and 39 others.
      The historic act was part of an emergent communication of Phalanx Lodge 31AF&AM. Present were Charles L. Davidson, DDGM, Worshipful Master; William Neal Robertson, Senior Warden; Allen Hardy, Junior Warden; George M. Smith, Secretary; Doug Mayes, Chaplain; Phil McBride, Senior Deacon; Clayton Wright, Junior Deacon; David Carriker, Senior Steward, and Arthur D. Skidmore, Tyler. Joe Henry closed the lodge.
     To Masons, the long fight never should have happened. There was never any question about the integrity of the Masons who everyone knew in 1775 had the finest reputations and who signed the great Charlotte document. People had been questioning the honesty of a document instead of the honesty of its signers.
     Masonic history was made that afternoon at the home of Hezekiah Alexander.

Click the image above to view full-size graphic.

Hezekiah Alexander today

      What a blacksmith! He helped forge North Carolina’s constitution and bill of rights. He helped change Charlotte from a trifling backcountry crossroads into a great city.
      When he drove his wagon south to Charlotte, he was the first of a stream of 400 people named Alexander to migrate. Five of the 27 Mec Dec signers were Alexanders. Even today there are 439 Alexanders listed in the Charlotte telephone directory.
      He died Sunday, July 19, 1801, at the age of 74. He was carried from his beloved Sugaw Creek Presbyterian Church by his Masonic brothers to its cemetery across Tryon street and a simple grave marked by a monument with little to say.
      But nearby, his house lives on, across the centuries, with much to speak for him and for Masonry.

*