TODD E. CREASON
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve
begun work on Famous American Freemasons:
Volume II. I think it's going to be even better than the first.
I had a lot of reasons to
write the first book, and I believe I accomplished all my goals with the first
one. I wanted to tell a story of America,
and make people feel good about their country again. I wanted to give something back to the
fraternity that has given me so much by showing the contributions Freemasons
have made to our country throughout history.
And finally, I wanted to celebrate the lives of great Americans, some
well know, others lesser known, and tell stories about these men that give new
insight to their characters—insights that demonstrate that these sometimes
larger than life characters were real men, with the same hopes, the same fears,
and the same dreams we still hold today.
As I begin researching and profiling a whole new batch of remarkable Americans, I’m reminded of something I said in my first book. You don’t have to look very far to see that Freemasonry has been around a long time, and has been important to men throughout our entire history in America. If you start looking for the signs and symbols of Freemasonry, you’ll begin to see them everywhere.
You’ll see them engraved on buildings Masons built. You’ll find them on
the gravestones of departed Freemasons. You’ll see the signs and symbols of
Freemasonry on the bumpers of cars, and you’ll see Masonic rings on the fingers
of members. You’ll even find symbols in the most unlikely places, like in classic
artwork hundreds of years old—some of these artworks predate when most people
believe Freemasonry began by several hundred years.
But what’s harder to see, is the mark
left on the world by Masons because of the contributions they made while they
were among us. Contributions that shaped
the world, contributions that, in fact, changed the world. These contributions often made these men
wealthy, and famous, but very often, they blazed a trail for those that
followed. These incredibly industrious
men very often opened doors that many, many more have walked through in the years since.
A whole new generation is beginning
to find Freemasonry, and they are discovering the same thing that generations
before them discovered. They are finding out that
this arcane and ancient organization that clings to its ritual traditions is
not about preserving the past, it’s about building the future—one man at a
time.
