The Scottish Rite Journal

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Bros. Joseph B. Howard II
and Walter J. Klein, KCCH

Brother Zebulon Baird Vance is the most significant and beloved hero in
North Carolina’s 400-year history.

Zeb Vance could joke his way into your heart.Shops were closed as hundreds walked to the courthouse to hear him plead a case. He commissioned the ship Advance to break the Union blockade. He made sure the rights of North Carolinians were respected by insisting his state be the only one—Union or Confederate—not to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. He charmed his captors as he was taken to prison no less than he charmed the people of his state and his colleagues when he was a United States Senator.

Article co-authors Bros. Joseph B. Howard II, Nichols-West Asheville Lodge #650, Asheville, N.C., and Walter J. Klein, KCCH, Excelsior Lodge #261, Charlotte, N.C., and Valley of Charlotte, N.C., are pictured at the Vance Birthplace State Historic Site near Asheville.

His portrait was said to be on the wall of every house in the Tar Heel State. Hundreds of thousands of children were named after him, a practice which continues a century after his death and illustrates the great respect, love, and honor he inspired among his people. No sooner was he addressed by one title than he’d earn another. Vance was at home with everyone, from his colleagues in Washington, D.C., to the Polish-born Jew who was his best friend in Charlotte. Even his political enemies could not help but admire him. A bronze sculpture of Vance stands in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. The statue was sculpted by fellow Mason Gutzon Borglum who carved the monumental heads of the four Presidents on Mount Rushmore.

Zebulon Vance was log-cabin born May 13, 1830, into a family of leaders. Silver spoon? No way. Even at a young age, his absolute honesty, passionate diligence, mastery in every job he sought, and lifelong attitude as a student at the feet of God and of all humanity took him anywhere he felt he should go. He did not need a family pedigree to open doors.

And did he ever go! He was 12 when he told a classmate he felt he was going to be Governor of North Carolina, and he was elected three times. Beginning the path to that high point of his life, Zeb was elected Buncombe County Solicitor at 23. Then, he was elected to the North Carolina legislature at 24. By age 28, he was the youngest United States Congressman in America. This was followed by his being a Confederate Army Colonel cited for heroism at New Bern,

Kinston, and Mavern Hill; four-term United States Senator; nationally acclaimed speaker; and winner of civil and criminal cases in all courtrooms—local, state, and national.

But was he a Mason? Yes, from the time he was 23. Vance was a member of one of his state’s most important Masonic families, and he was near Masons and active in the Craft most of his 65 years. On February 4, 1853, Vance petitioned Mt. Hermon Lodge #118 in Asheville. He received both the Second and Third Degrees on June 20, 1853. His Mt. Hermon Lodge

Brothers M. Patton, I. W. Dunn, and Joshia Roberts comprised the investigating committee. Vance was active in his Lodge, serving as Secretary, Junior Deacon, Senior Deacon, and Junior Warden pro tem. Records show he was absent from meetings “only a few times” over many years, and he helped revise his Lodge’s bylaws. Vance affiliated with Asheville Royal Arch Chapter #25 of the York Rite in 1855 and remained active until the Civil War.

Zeb’s older brother, Robert Brank Vance, also a member of Mt. Hermon Lodge, was the 37th Grand Master of Masons of North Carolina.* David L. Swain, President of the University of North Carolina (UNC) and an eminent Mason, made it possible for Zeb to attend that university and remained his lifelong friend. UNC, America’s first state university, was founded by Masons, and the campus was laid out in the form of a Masonic Lodge.

Vance’s wartime fame and noble deeds were recognized by Masons in a special way. A military Lodge was formed in 1864 among the North Carolina heavy artillery under dispensation of Grand Master John McCormick. They named it Z. B. Vance Lodge #2.
After the war, Vance and his family moved from Statesville to Charlotte where he practiced law for ten years. He was there partly to be with Brother Samuel Wittkowsky, the man who stepped forward to help him during the worst day of Vance’s life. Because he was North Carolina’s Governor during the Civil War, Vance was seized by hundreds of Union troops, in front of his crying wife and children, to be marched off to prison. Wittkowsky intervened and drove Vance in his buggy.

They were lifelong friends and Masonic Brothers. Zeb was a walking expert on the Old Testament, and Sam seemed like a living, articulate character lifted from the pages of the Bible. Masonry, vital to them both, was a powerful bond. Together they helped establish Excelsior Lodge #261 in Charlotte in 1867. Wittkowsky was elected its Founding Master, and Vance, who is also officially recognized by Excelsior Lodge as a Founding Member, was there to counsel him.

That same year Vance affiliated with Charlotte Royal Arch Chapter #39, York Rite, to begin many years of active service. Two years later, he demitted from his Asheville Lodge. In 1872, he affiliated with Phalanx Lodge #31 in Charlotte, where he was active across many years. Other Lodges, including Pine Forest Lodge #186 and Carolina Lodge #141, prevailed on Vance to represent them at Grand Lodge sessions.

While practicing law in Charlotte, Zeb lectured nationally. His prime subject was “The Scattered Nation,” Zeb’s account of his faith in the Jewish people and their remark-able achievements through the ages. It was a touching tribute to Wittkowsky, his Jewish Masonic Brother.

The first four North Carolina Grand Masters were the state’s Governors. The second was Richard Caswell of Kinston. In that city on August 3, 1881, Vance delivered the oration at the cornerstone laying of the monument in Caswell’s memory.

From 1879 until his death, Zeb served in the United States Senate as a popular and effective mediator between North and South. He died April 14, 1894, a day when just about everything in North Carolina stopped. To the people of a state who dearly loved him, the only thing Zeb ever did wrong was die. On April 18, 1894, Bros. E. I. Holmes, W. R. Heston, M. W.Robertson, W. F. Randolph, and 129 other Freemasons, including Bro. Sam Wittkowsky, walked in the escort procession carrying Brother Vance to Riverside Cemetery, Asheville. There a crowd of 10,000 had gathered despite a heavy downpour. Strangely, there was no Masonic funeral ceremony. All knew that America had lost a mighty champion and friend.

*John Catlett Vance, Zeb’s and Robert’s descendant, became the 104th North Carolina Grand Master in 1956. He, too, was a product of Mt. Hermon Lodge #118 in Asheville, the source of eight North Carolina Grand Masters.

Contact: Walter J. Klein, 5009 Gamton Court, Charlotte, NC 28226; wklein@carolina.rr.com

Bronze life-size statue of Senator Vance, with bas-relief panels depicting high points in his life, on the grounds of the North Carolina state capitol in Raleigh.