Even in retirement he would continue his devotion to the order and was named charter Master of the newly chartered Alexandria Lodge № 22. and even sat for a portrait in his full Masonic regalia. When he died, aged 67, on December 14, 1799, he was buried in the old Washington family vault at Mount Vernon with full Masonic honors.
Washington may have been the first U.S. president and the first to be the leader of our nation and a brother of the Freemason, but he would most certainly not be the last. Fellow Founding Father, James Monroe, was also a brother that, like Washington, had a long history with the Masons when he joined the Williamsburg Lodge No. 6 in 1776 aged just 17.
He would go on to have an illustrious career, serving as the governor of Virginia, a member of the Senate, Washington’s ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War, eventually becoming the fifth president of the United States.
