William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft — born September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio — served as the 27th President of the United States from March 1909 through March 1913 and later as the 10th Chief Justice of the United States from July 1921 until his death on March 8, 1930. He remains the only person to have led both the executive and judicial branches of the federal government.

Taft was a Mason “at sight” — raised in Cincinnati’s Kilwinning Lodge No. 356 on February 18, 1909, two weeks before his inauguration.

The GW Masonic Memorial Association

In the years following the 1910 founding of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association, Taft played an active early organizational role on behalf of the project. At the November 1, 1923 cornerstone ceremony on Shuter’s Hill, Taft — by then Chief Justice — sat on the platform alongside President Calvin Coolidge Person Calvin Coolidge b. 1872 · d. 1933 30th President of the United States (1923–1929) and a Freemason. On November 1, 1923, before a crowd of roughly 14,000, Coolidge laid the cornerstone of the on Shuter's Hill using … and the Grand Masters of every U.S. Masonic grand lodge, in a ceremony that used the same Alexandria-made silver trowel George Washington Person George Washington b. 1732 · d. 1799 Planter, military commander, and first President of the United States. Master of Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799, and a regular presence in Alexandria, which he … had used in 1793 to lay the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol ^[1] Source 1 Scottish Rite Journal — "100th Anniversary of the GWMNM Cornerstone Laying" Website .

Taft did not live to attend the 1932 dedication; that ceremony was presided over by President Herbert Hoover Person Herbert Hoover b. 1874 · d. 1964 31st President of the United States (1929–1933). On May 12, 1932 — during the bicentennial of Washington's birth — Hoover delivered the formal dedication address at the on … .