By T.S. Akers
There is an Oklahoma legend that originated with Edmond H. Doyle, a man who was past grand everything. Doyle would relate a tale of meeting a non-English speaking Choctaw during a storm in the dark of night. Seeking shelter from the storm, Doyle gave a sign which the Choctaw recognized and greeted him with hospitality. Doyle referred to this as Choctaw “Horse Masonry,” which he states included signs and grips.[1] In his volume Freemasonry and the American Indian, William R. Denslow includes several Masonic Indian rescue stories. He added, “If you had not crossed the western plains without being assaulted by Indians, given a Masonic distress sign, and finally saved, you were an exception to the rule.”[2] It is interesting that these Masonic Indian rescue stories really begin to proliferate around the time that Rudyard Kipling wrote his short story "The Man Who Would Be King." That tale followed the lives of two English loafers who ventured into the fictional Kafiristan and discovered a form of Freemasonry was being practiced. Joy Porter, in Native American Freemasonry: Associationalism and Performance in America, labels these stories as mythohistoric facts. She elaborates on this, stating she means that Euro-Americans would prefer them to be true rather than to anything conventionally verifiable.[3] Another persistent mythohistoric fact is that the Comanche Quanah Parker was a Freemason.
Quanah Parker was born around 1845 in the Wichita Mountains of present-day Oklahoma to Comanche war chief Peta Nocona and a white captive named Nautda (“Someone Found”). Her original name was Cynthia Ann Parker and she had been taken at age nine during a Comanche raid in 1836 on her family’s outpost, Fort Parker, located in Texas. During this period, the Comanches vigorously fought to defend their range, known as the Comancheria, from white trespass. Texas towns were regularly raided and the Comanches frequently clashed with the U.S. Army and Texas Rangers. When he was just a boy, Texas Rangers captured Quanah’s mother and sister Tot-see-ah (“Prairie Flower”).[4] This continued violence culminated in the Red River War which was ended when Quanah and his Quahada band of Comanches surrendered at Fort Sill in June of 1875.[5]
Having been forced onto a reservation around Fort Sill, Quanah assumed his mother’s surname and began to adjust to the new life before him.[6] Seeing him as a success, federal Indian agents named Quanah chief in an effort to unite the various bands of Comanches for better management. In this role, Quanah acted as an assimilationist. He promoted the construction of schools for Euro-American education and negotiated cattle grazing lease agreements on reservation land.[7] Quanah himself did well in ranching, allowing him to construct his famous Star House, which featured a red roof with white stars.[8] Quanah quickly gained a celebrity status, with his automobile and home telephone. Guests to Star House even included President Theodore Roosevelt.[9]
With his association with individuals like Roosevelt and prominent Texas ranchers, the question arises, was Quanah Parker a Freemason? (Two separate Brothers approached this author this year with the same question.) It has long been rumored that Quanah was a member of the McAlester Scottish Rite Valley and may even have frequented the temple there. As he passed in 1911, it was certainly possible that Quanah could have visited the first Scottish Rite temple at McAlester, erected in 1907.[10] Fortunately, the McAlester Scottish Rite Valley keeps excellent membership records, of which some files contain a wealth of information. A review of the membership records of the McAlester Valley yielded no entry for Quanah Parker. Similarly, the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma has extensive membership records, particularly from the beginning of the twentieth century forward. Again, there was no entry for Quanah Parker.
So where does this idea of Quanah Parker having been a Freemason come from? A Google search points to Texas. In June of 2010, the “Trestleboard” newsletter for Culver City Foshay Lodge No. 467 of Los Angeles, California, notes the following:
Charles Goodnight was a noted Texas rancher, who in 1876 founded the JA Ranch in the Palo Duro Canyon. By 1885 the ranch covered 1,325,000 acres.[12] His prominence in ranching circles earned Goodnight a spot in the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum of Oklahoma City in 1955.[13] As a scout for the Texas Rangers, a young Goodnight personally led Rangers to the Comanche encampment of Peta Nocona in 1860, resulting in the capture of Quanah’s mother and sister. Destitute Comanches, off their reservation, began hunting the few buffalo that were left in the Palo Duro Canyon, near the JA herd, in 1878. This led Goodnight to broker a deal with Quanah, in which Goodnight would provide the Comanches with two beeves every other day if they did not disturb his herd. Goodnight sold his interest in the JA Ranch in 1887, purchasing a smaller ranch in Armstrong County. He had established a 250 head herd of domestic buffalo at the JA, which Goodnight took with him. In addition to providing buffalo to zoos, Goodnight staged buffalo hunts for Quanah Parker and others.[14] Goodnight was also a member of Phoenix Lodge No. 275.[15]
The volume Phoenix Lodge: The First Twenty-Five Years was published in 1987. According to administrator Moore, the book’s author Dexter Sammons was a revered Masonic historian in Texas. In preparing his work, Sammons obtained information on Charles Goodnight from his authorized biographer J. Evetts Haley. This is where the claim that Quanah Parker was a Freemason originates. In a letter from Goodnight to Haley, Goodnight writes:
There are a couple of reasons why it is unlikely that Quanah Parker was a Freemason. To begin with, Quanah practiced polygamy. He had between five and eight wives, depending on the source, who all resided with him at his Star House with their two dozen children.[17] This period followed Quanah’s surrender in 1875. There absolutely were Indian men joining Freemasonry during this period, but the practice of polygamy in those Nations (the Five Tribes in particular) had long been discontinued. Furthermore, it is noted that Quanah rejected Christianity.[18] It was conversions to Christianity that typically preceded Indian initiations into Freemasonry. Quanah, however, embraced the peyote religion, which had begun to spread across the reservations around Fort Sill in the 1870s. He was one of the principal actors in the development and diffusion of this religion, which became the Native American Church in 1918.[19] Though the peyote religion was monotheistic, it would have been outside the norms of what American Masons would have been willing to accept as a belief in a supreme being.
Whilst Texas Freemasons may not be able to officially say Quanah Parker was not a Freemason, this author is comfortable with the statement that Quanah was not associated with Freemasonry.
