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Thomas W. Jackson,
R. W. Past Grand Secretary of Pennsylvania

Born: September 14, 1934 - Died: December 29, 2021

R. W. Brother Thomas W. Jackson, Freemasonry’s most outspoken and indefatigable proponent for upholding
standards of excellence from the West Gate to the Grand East has died. Brother Thomas W. Jackson was a
Pennsylvania Freemason, but he was lionized across the Masonic world for his principled insistence that this
fraternity must stop self-injuring by neglecting the very ideas that have been key to Masonic identity for
centuries. He was eighty-six.

In speech after speech, essay after essay, book after book, Jackson held up a mirror to his brethren, challenging
us to recognize how Freemasonry’s loss of prestige in society stems precisely from the initiate first, ask
questions later mindset that has given lodges an uninspiring generic fraternal club personality. “Essentially, we
don’t know our origins, but Freemasonry attracted some of the greatest men of the last 300 years,” he often
said. “Did Freemasonry make men great, or did great men make Freemasonry? I say it is both. Voltaire, Mozart,
Haydn, Franklin, and Washington were men we wanted to be associated with. That is our deficit today in North
America. Where are the Mozart’s of today? My role is to preserve Freemasonry in case great men come later.”

He did more than keep the lights on; Tom Jackson reflected the Light. He showed a path forward. In his home
state, he labored as Grand Secretary for nineteen years. He was a principal in Pennsylvania’s research lodge,
its first Observant lodge, and, of course, its Academy of Masonic Knowledge. At the national leadership level,
Tom was, among many other things, Past President of the Conference of Masonic Grand Secretaries of North
America, a Blue Friar (No. 93), a prolific book reviewer for ages in The Northern Light, and a tireless traveler
from conference to symposium to lodge meeting, ceaselessly evangelizing his inspiring message of how you
and I can restore Freemasonry’s magnificence if we only would follow the clear teachings we received in the
first place.

Tom Jackson’s ideas were not always welcome. Nor did his influence stop at our nation’s shores; Tom, in effect,
was the leader of the World Conference of Masonic Grand Lodges, albeit reluctantly, for years. Brazil, where
Freemasonry is revered, put him on a postage stamp. Thomas Jackson was a Founding Fellow of the Masonic
Society.

Montana Freemason Page 21 Jan/Feb 2022 Volume 98 No.1