Truman Renovation Stones and the Original Cornerstone
The White House underwent a complete renovation during President Harry S. Truman’s second term. During the initial excavation, workmen discovered stones bearing markings believed to be made by the building’s first stone masons. Truman, an active Freemason and former Grand Master of Missouri, ordered that the stones be carefully extracted and preserved. In the fall of 1952, Truman invited D.C. Grand Master and city commissioner Renah Camalier to distribute the stones to each state Grand Lodge and several other national masonic organizations throughout the country. Each stone included a signed letter by President Truman, framed with wood taken from the White House, on the stone’s provenance.
The renovation project spurred interest in the building’s early history. A congressional committee tasked with managing the project partnered with local and national historians to compile as much information on the White House, which included any information on the original cornerstone ceremony. The search prompted the discovery of a newspaper article, first published in the Charleston Gazette, South Carolina, in November 1792, which turned out to be the only known eyewitness account of the cornerstone event. The account aligned with surviving masonic sources to confirm key moments and participants.
White House renovation architect Lorenzo S. Winslow and his assistant Colonel Douglas H. Gillettee referred to the newspaper source during their own search for the cornerstone. Winslow and Gillettee posited that if the brass plaque deposited below the cornerstone during the first 1792 ceremony remained intact, it could be found using a metal detector – a relatively new technology at the time. They scanned the building’s walls, picked up a signal near the south-west corner, and relayed their potential discovery back to the commission’s executive secretary, Major General Glen H. Edgerton, and to President Harry S. Truman. Truman’s aides planned to extract and reinstall the plaque during another public ceremony despite objections by the Washington Post editorial board and R. Baker Harris, a prominent Washington mason and Librarian of the Scottish Rite’s House of the Temple. According to White House Curator Rex Scouten, who served on Truman’s Secret Service detail during the discovery, Truman did not wish to disturb the stone unnecessarily and scrapped the stone ceremony. The stone and plaque are believed to be still in their original location today despite another attempt to locate the stone during President George H. W. Bush’s term in office.
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