Famous Masons
Many men throughout history have been members of our fraternity.
In these pages we will present you with them and try to impress upon you the great men that have been Masons.
Famous Mason Categories
Alphabetical List • Articles of Confederation • Astronauts • Businessmen • Entertainers • Explorers and Frontiersmen • Governors • Military Leaders
Politician • Presidents • Senator • Signer Declaration of Independence • Sports • Supreme Court Justice • US Constitution
- The results are being filtered by the character: B
Lloyd Bacon is probably best known for his director?s credit on such classic Warner Bros. films as ?42nd Street?, ?Footlight Parade?, ?Knute Rockne ? All American?, and ?Action in the North Atlantic?. Still, other film personalities are better remembered for these films: choreographer Busby Berkeley for the musicals, and actors Pat O?Brien, Ronald Reagan, and Humphrey Bogart for the 1940s films.…
A pioneer polar aviator, navigator, aircraft mechanical engineer and military leader. A Norwegian native, he later became a U.S. citizen, and was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. His service in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II made use of his Arctic exploration expertise to help the Allies over Scandinavia and Northern Europe.…
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from January 18, 1830, to April 21, 1844.
Founded as L.G. Balfour Company Friday, June 13, 1913 by Lloyd Garfield ?Bally? Balfour in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Specialized in the manufacturing of sorority and fraternity jewelry and class rings. Later, in the 1970s, the company also began producing sports jewelry.
Meyer Kessler, was an American magician, comedian and actor.
Billing himself as ?The Great Ballantine?, ?The Amazing Ballantine? or ?Ballantine: The World?s Greatest Magician?, his vaudeville-style comedy routine involved transparent or incompetent stage magic tricks, which tended to flop and go ?hilariously awry? to the wisecracking Ballantine?s mock chagrin. He has been credited with creating comedy magic and has influenced both comics and magicians.
Bancroft was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1882. During his early days as a sailor he staged plays on board ship. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy, but left the Navy to become a ?black face? song and dance comedian in revue. After that he turned to melodrama and musical comedy. He later became one of the top Hollywood stars of the 1920s.…
American cinematographer from the era of silent films to the early 1950s. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for an Academy Award eight times, including his work on The Devil Dancer (1927) with Gilda Gray and Clive Brook. However, he only won once, for his work on the Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca (1940).…
American attorney, politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 80th Governor of Georgia from 1999 to 2003.
A member of the Georgia Senate from 1974 to 1990, Barnes ran unsuccessfully for Governor in 1990, losing to Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller in the Democratic primary. Barnes then served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1992 to 1998.…
American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16 he increasingly played jazz piano at parties, resorts and other venues.…
Older brother of Edward Bates and James Woodson Bates, was an American attorney and politician. He was elected in 1824 as the second governor of Missouri and died in office in 1825. Before that he had served as a Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court for Michigan Territory, was appointed by Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of the Louisiana Territory and started to build his political base in St.…
American illustrator, author, youth leader, and social reformer who founded the Sons of Daniel Boone in 1905, which Beard later merged with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).
Joined the circus as a cage cleaner as a teen and became famous as a lion tamer and animal trainer. He also became a circus impresario who owned his own show that later merged with the Cole Bros. Circus to form the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus.
American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware. He served in the Delaware General Assembly, as a Continental Congressman from Delaware and as a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787. He is often confused with his cousin, Gunning Bedford, Sr. an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution and Governor of Delaware.
He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 movies in a 36-year career.…
Canadian newspaper publisher, race horse owner and philanthropist. He was best known as the co-founder of FP Publications, Canada?s largest newspaper syndicate in the 1960s. He built his newspaper empire after inheriting the Calgary Albertan, and its $500,000 debt, from his father in 1936. He repaid debt by 1945 and proceeded to purchase papers across the country, including the Ottawa Journal and the Globe and Mail.…
William Andrew Cecil Bennett, PC, OC was the 25th Premier of the Canadian province of British Columbia. With just over 20 years in office, Bennett was and remains the longest-serving premier in British Columbia history. He was usually referred to as W.A.C. Bennett, although some referred to him either affectionately or mockingly as ?Wacky? Bennett. To his close friends, he was known as ?Cece?.
Nicknamed ?Old Bullion?, was a U.S. Senator from Missouri and a staunch advocate of westward expansion of the United States. He served in the Senate from 1821 to 1851, becoming the first member of that body to serve five terms. Benton was an architect and champion of westward expansion by the United States, a cause that became known as Manifest Destiny.
A four-term United States Senator (1971?1993) from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1948 to 1955. In his later political life, he was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the U.S. Treasury Secretary during the first two years of the Clinton administration.
Russian-born Jewish-American composer and lyricist. Widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history, his music forms a great part of the Great American Songbook. He published his first song, ?Marie from Sunny Italy?, in 1907, receiving 37 cents for the publishing rights, and had his first major international hit, ?Alexander?s Ragtime Band? in 1911.…
Pulitzer Prize?winning cartoonist with the Washington Star newspaper from 1907 to 1949. He was also a cartoonist for The Washington Post from 1891 to 1907.
Berryman was born on April 2, 1869, in Clifton, Kentucky, to James Thomas Berryman and Sallie Church Berryman. He married Kate Geddes Durfee in July, 1893, and they had three children: Mary Belle (died as an infant), Florence Seville (an art critic), and James Thomas (a Pulitzer Prize?winning cartoonist).…
American football player, coach of football, basketball, and baseball, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Mississippi College (1913?1915), Louisiana State University (1916), Texas A&M University (1917, 1919?1928), the University of Nebraska (1929?1936), and the University of Texas (1937?1946), compiling a career college football record of 198?72?23.
Bible was also the head basketball coach at Texas A&M from 1920 to 1927 and the head baseball coach there from 1920 to 1921.…
American politician and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, Black represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1937, and served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to 1971.
Black was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Black is widely regarded as one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in the 20th century.
Blair was one of the best-trained jurists of his day. A famous legal scholar, he avoided the tumult of state politics, preferring to work behind the scenes. But he was devoted to the idea of a permanent union of the newly independent states and loyally supported fellow Virginians James Madison and George Washington at the Constitutional Convention.…
American actor, comedian, and radio personality. Although he began his sixty-plus-year career performing in radio, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros. as the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, the Tasmanian Devil and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon short films, produced during the golden age of American animation.…
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from April 3, 1882 until his death.
Movie actor who began his career as a romantic leading man in the silent film era, and later progressed to character roles.
American sculptor, photographer, author and engineer; he was best known for overseeing the completion of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial after the death in 1941 of the project?s leader, his father Gutzon Borglum.
American artist and sculptor famous for creating the monumental presidents? heads at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota; the famous carving on Stone Mountain near Atlanta; and other public works of art, including a head of Abraham Lincoln, exhibited in Theodore Roosevelt?s White House and held in the United States Capitol Crypt in Washington, D.C.
American film and television actor whose career spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1955 for Marty. On television, he played Quinton McHale in the 1962?1966 series McHale?s Navy and co-starred in the mid-1980s action series Airwolf, in addition to a wide variety of other roles.…
He was born in Chinquapin North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a member of the Philanthropic Society, and attended the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
United States Army field commander in North Africa and Europe during World War II, and a General of the Army. From the Normandy landings through the end of the war in Europe, Bradley had command of all U.S. ground forces invading Germany from the west; he ultimately commanded forty-three divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under a U.S.…
38th Mayor of Los Angeles, serving from 1973 to 1993. He was the only African-American mayor of that city, and his 20 years in office mark the longest tenure by any mayor in the city?s history. His 1973 election made him the second African-American mayor of a major U.S. city. Bradley retired in 1993, after his approval ratings began dropping subsequent to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.…
Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Perhaps the American Indian of his generation best known to the Americans and British, he met many of the most significant Anglo-American people of the age, including both George Washington and King George III
Delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention and signed the U.S. Constitution on behalf of New Jersey
British Columbia, Canada. Brewster arrived in British Columbia in 1893, and had various careers working on a ship and then in a cannery. He eventually became owner of his own canning company. He was elected to the provincial legislature in the 1907 election, and was one of only two Liberals elected to the legislature in the 1909 election.
American actor and comedian most famous for his portrayal of a lovable drunken man in nightclub performances and television programs.
American businessperson and politician from Wilmington, in New castle County, Delaware. As a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, he was a signer of the United States Constitution. He was also appointed as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention (1786) but did not attend, and he served in the Delaware General Assembly. He was the father of Congressman James M.…
American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s with successful films like A Midsummer Night?s Dream, Earthworm Tractors and Alibi Ike. In his later career Brown starred in Some Like It Hot as Osgood Fielding III, in which he utters the famous punchline ?Well, nobody?s perfect?.
Fifth president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), serving from 1952 to 1972. The only American to attain that position, Brundage is remembered as a zealous advocate of amateurism, and for his involvement with the 1936 and 1972 Summer Olympics, both held in Germany.
Dominant force in the populist wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as the Party?s candidate for President of the United States (1896, 1900 and 1908). He served two terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska and was United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson (1913?1915), resigning because of his pacifist position on World War I.…
American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s. As Uncle Joe, he took over as proprietor of the Shady Rest Hotel following the 1968 death of Bea Benaderet, who had played Kate Bradley.
Tall, stately, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only President who never married.
Presiding over a rapidly dividing Nation, Buchanan grasped inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional arguments which favored the South.…
PC, QC Canadian lawyer and former politician who served as the 20th Premier of Nova Scotia from 1978 to 1990 and as a member of the Senate of Canada from 1990 to 2006.
Admiral Arleigh Albert ?31-knot? Burke was an admiral of the United States Navy who distinguished himself during World War II and the Korean War, and who served as Chief of Naval Operations during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.
American right-handed pitcher and umpire in Major League Baseball. From 1945 through 1949 he played for the St. Louis Cardinals (1945?48) and Cincinnati Reds (1948?49), and he served as a National League umpire from 1957 to 1973.
Lobbyist and former United States Senator from Montana. He is only the second Republican to represent Montana in the Senate since the passage in 1913 of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and is the longest-serving Republican senator in Montana history.
American politician and lawyer. He served as the 45th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, as a U.S. Senator from Ohio, and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was known as a dispassionate jurist who prized equal justice under the law.
American politician from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a U.S. Representative (1911?1925), a U.S. Senator (1931?1941), a Justice of the Supreme Court (1941?1942), Secretary of State (1945?1947), and 104th governor of South Carolina (1951?1955). He is one of very few politicians to serve in all three branches of the American federal government while also being active in state government.…