The International Order of 12 – the Knights and Daughters of Tabor:
Research on an African American Fraternal Order in Conroe, Texas
by Ann Meador, the History Taskforce
Four tombstones in the Conroe Community Cemetery hint at the existence of a local African American group that once was a vibrant, community-involved organization, but seems to have died out in the early 1920s. The only tangible evidence discovered so far of its existence are the memorial tombstones of Sir Knight George Pruitt, and three Daughters of Tabor -Margarette Stewart, Carrie Johnson, and Eliza Evans – who now rest in the recently restored 10th street cemetery. These four people are believed to have lived in the areas known as Dugan and Madeley Quarters, where Highway 105 crosses 10th street east of downtown Conroe.
It is not currently known exactly when the organization first formed in the Conroe area, but it apparently was active there during the late 1800s and through the 1920s.The men’s group was called a Temple and the women members belonged to Tabernacles. There were also separate groups for young men and women called Tents.
Eliza Evans and Carrie Johnson, according to their tombstones, were both members of the Wild Rose Tabernacle # 324. Margarette Stewart was a member of the Ruth Tabernacle #74. George Pruitt belonged to Boaz Temple #47. If the information on the tombstones is correct, none of them were born into slavery.
Margarette Stewart, however, was born on June 20, 1865, the day after Juneteenth (June 19th, 1865). The knowledge that President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in 1863 did not reach Texas until General Gordon Granger and his Federal troops brought the news to Galveston the day before Margarette was born in 1865.
Reverend Moses Dickson, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1824, was the founder of the organization. According to his book written in 1891, he married Mary Elizabeth Peters in Illinois in 1848. Dickson’s parents were Robert and Hannah Dickson, natives of Virginia. Other online sources say that he was born free and travel widely across the nation, including the South, where he saw the practices of enslavement, which made him devoted to the abolition of slavery.
Dickson organized a group of twelve men who met in St. Louis in 1846 to devise a plan to end slavery, by armed insurrection if necessary. By 1856 he is said to have enlisted over 47,000 members of the Knights of Liberty all over the South who stood ready to fight for freedom. They had chapters in all of the Southern states except Texas and Missouri. In 1856 he also formed a smaller secret group called the Knights of Tabor- Order of the Twelve, in honor of the twelve original members of the Knights of Liberty. However, when the Civil War broke out, the Knights of Liberty, no longer needed in an armed insurrection, disbanded with many of their members enlisting in the Union Army. After the war, the fraternal Order of Twelve - Knights and Daughters of Tabor membership grew particularly in the former slave states where it offered members burial insurance and weekly sick pay benefits.
After the war, Dickson became a member of the A.M.E. church and was licensed to preach in 1867. For the remainder of his years, he devoted himself to improving life for African Americans through education and health care through the Knights of Tabor organization.
The Manual of the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor written by founder Moses Dickson in 1891 outlined the elaborate, colorful regalia required to be worn at meetings and burial ceremonies. (see image reel above)
If the rules of the group were followed, when Sir Knight George Pruitt died in Conroe in 1914, the following ritual would have been conducted:
When notice of the death of a Sir Knight is received, the Chief Mentor (presiding officer of the temple) shall summon the temple to convene to prepare for the funeral. The other Sir Knights must attend in full uniform with their sword hilts and banner dressed in mourning, and the Jewels (badges) of the officers in appropriate dress.
On the casket of the deceased Knight will be placed his sword and helmet; If an officer, his jewel clothed in black crepe. On the day of the burial, the Knights will assemble in the Temple and march to the residence of the deceased with swords reversed. A procession is formed and marches to the church or place of public worship, While the body is lying in state, there should be two or more Knights on duty near the body in full dress. (page 139 of manual listed below)
At the burial place the coffin carried by the Knights is placed over the grave with the Knights forming a circle around it, the family at the foot and the chief Mentor and clergy at the head. The funeral service at the church and at the graveside involved a service of readings and set responses from the Knights in attendance. After the religious service at the graveside, they conducted their own services of prayers and songs. They marched around the grave, saluting with their swords and clapping their hands several times during the service. When the services were complete, they would move in procession back to the Temple.
The full-dress regalia for these solemn ceremonies was as follows from the Knights’ manual:
A black single-breasted coat, buttoned up to the neck in military style, yellow metal buttons with the letters UKT; black pants, helmet trimmed with gold lace; a shield with the letters UKT ornamented with a scarlet feather; a baldrie 4 inches wide black in the center with scarlet on each side, trimmed with ½ inch of gold lace; on left breast the letters UKT; a twelve pointed star on the solder with the figures 777 in the center; gauntlets reaching halfway to the elbow with letters UKT; buckskin gloves of light yellow; regulation sword with a silver scabbard, silver chains, scarlet belt with hook for cap and cup, black/navy cap trimmed with silver lace and UKT letters. (page 304 of manual listed below)
Many of these groups published newspapers about the Black community where they were located. These papers had various Taborian names. Only two copies of these newspapers have been discovered in Texas. Both copies were of the Taborian Banner published every Friday in Galveston. They are located in the archives of the University of Texas Brisco Center for American History.
These two copies can be seen online at: https://umbrasearch.org/catalog/04efea34331260c7e50aea6071e4e77c0372e047
Conroe also published a newspaper for a few years early in the 1900s. According to the 1913 N.W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual and Directory, a Taborian Banner newspaper was being published in Conroe in that year with a circulation of 2,000. Research has not yet been able to locate an existing copy of this paper, but it is believed that it was printed in Conroe for a few years from about 1909 to at least 1913.
There were many Taborian groups in other Southern states, the most notable in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where the group built a regional hospital for members. This was part of the Taborian general mission to provide services to their members. The Mound Bayou hospital in the Mississippi Delta region opened in 1942, providing the only health care in that region specifically for the black population until it merged with the county hospital system in 1983 and that building was closed. In 2012, a successful restoration project was begun on its building and in 2016 it reopened as the Taborian Hospital Urgent Care Clinic.
Research is ongoing into this important piece of local history in the early years of the 20th century to try to understand the Taborian national organization in the Montgomery County area. Although the Conroe group seems to have declined by 1920, large chapters of this group existed at Galveston, Corsicana, and other Texas cities well into the mid-century.
The Taskforce can be reached at [email protected] if anyone has family information about the Knights and Daughters of Tabor that they would like to share.
The Manual of the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor by Reverend Moses Dickson, printed in 1891 by A.R. Fleming and Co, St. Louis, Mo. Available online at https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-gildedage%3A23811
Addendum
Genealogy details about the Conroe Cemetery Knights and Daughters of Tabor provided by the Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project.
George Pruitt:
George Pruitt was born in Alabama and based on information contained in the 1870 U.S. Census, likely in the year 1839. On 9 August 1868, George Pruitt married Louisa Richie in Ellis, Texas. For the next thirty years the census records provided a vignette of their family as it grew in size and relocated across the state.
George and Louise appeared on the 1870 United States census in Ellis, Texas, with their one-year-old son, Jim. According to the census George worked as a farmer while Louisa kept house. The record shows that both George and his wife were born in Alabama.
Sometime between 1870 and 1880 George and Louisa moved to Montgomery County, Texas. By 1880 George and Louisa had added three more children to their family. Their family now included James eleven, Albert seven, daughter Martecia five, and nine-month-old John. The Pruitts had relocated to the city of Willis, Texas. According to the census, George continued to work as a farmer while Louisa kept house. Eleven-year-old James also worked on the farm and the family remained in Willis for at least the next ten years.
Only two daughters appeared with George and Louisa on the 1900 United States census in Willis: Nannie age seventeen, and Della age fourteen. While both the 1870 and 1880 censuses recorded George and Louisa’s birth locations as the state of Alabama, the 1900 census listed Louisa’s birth location as Missouri. During their thirty-three years of marriage, Louisa gave birth to seven children, six of whom were still living at that time. The census record shows that George continued to farm while his daughter Nannie worked as a house keeper.
In 1906 George Pruitt married Miss Jennette Terry on 21 October in Conroe, Montgomery, Texas.
The 1910 census noted that George and Johnie (Jeanette) married for five years, shared three children, a seven-year-old son Fisher, and two daughters, Margie two, and Mary three months. The record also shows their marriage as George’s second and Johnie’s first.
George Pruitt died on 9 February 1914 in Conroe, Montgomery, Texas. His burial took place in Conroe Community Cemetery. A stone memorial has with the initials “G P” and his memorial included the following inscription, “43 yrs 777 333 Sir Knight Boaz Temple 47 K&D Tabor 10012.” The inscription signified that George Pruitt was a member of the organization known as the International 777-Order of Twelve-333 of Knights of Tabor. One of the primary purposes of the organization included uniting members with ceremonies and oaths for the purpose of protecting and caring for one another. The Knights and Daughters of Tabor dedicated some of their charitable works to their “widows and orphans” and “sick or disabled members.”
Eliza Evans:
Eliza Evans was born 20 November 1870 and died 28 March 1912. The only record of her life is her tombstone in the Conroe Community Cemetery. The symbols and notations on the stone indicate that she was a member in good standing of Wild Rose Tabernacle no. 324, a local chapter of the International order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor - a benevolent and mutual aid society in the last part of the 1800’s and the early 1900’s. The term “DTR” (Daughter) most likely refers to her membership in the organization as opposed to a family relationship.
Carrie Johnson
Research is ongoing.
The 333 and 777 showed that she was a member in good standing. The DTR before her name means Daughter of Tabor. The I. O. O. 12 stands for the International Order Of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor.
Margarette Stewart
Research is ongoing.
The abbreviation DTR is for Daughter (of Tabor).
The I.O.O.12 stands for the International Order of Twelve.
Research on an African American Fraternal Order in Conroe, Texas
by Ann Meador, the History Taskforce
Four tombstones in the Conroe Community Cemetery hint at the existence of a local African American group that once was a vibrant, community-involved organization, but seems to have died out in the early 1920s. The only tangible evidence discovered so far of its existence are the memorial tombstones of Sir Knight George Pruitt, and three Daughters of Tabor -Margarette Stewart, Carrie Johnson, and Eliza Evans – who now rest in the recently restored 10th street cemetery. These four people are believed to have lived in the areas known as Dugan and Madeley Quarters, where Highway 105 crosses 10th street east of downtown Conroe.
It is not currently known exactly when the organization first formed in the Conroe area, but it apparently was active there during the late 1800s and through the 1920s.The men’s group was called a Temple and the women members belonged to Tabernacles. There were also separate groups for young men and women called Tents.
Eliza Evans and Carrie Johnson, according to their tombstones, were both members of the Wild Rose Tabernacle # 324. Margarette Stewart was a member of the Ruth Tabernacle #74. George Pruitt belonged to Boaz Temple #47. If the information on the tombstones is correct, none of them were born into slavery.
Margarette Stewart, however, was born on June 20, 1865, the day after Juneteenth (June 19th, 1865). The knowledge that President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in 1863 did not reach Texas until General Gordon Granger and his Federal troops brought the news to Galveston the day before Margarette was born in 1865.
Reverend Moses Dickson, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1824, was the founder of the organization. According to his book written in 1891, he married Mary Elizabeth Peters in Illinois in 1848. Dickson’s parents were Robert and Hannah Dickson, natives of Virginia. Other online sources say that he was born free and travel widely across the nation, including the South, where he saw the practices of enslavement, which made him devoted to the abolition of slavery.
Dickson organized a group of twelve men who met in St. Louis in 1846 to devise a plan to end slavery, by armed insurrection if necessary. By 1856 he is said to have enlisted over 47,000 members of the Knights of Liberty all over the South who stood ready to fight for freedom. They had chapters in all of the Southern states except Texas and Missouri. In 1856 he also formed a smaller secret group called the Knights of Tabor- Order of the Twelve, in honor of the twelve original members of the Knights of Liberty. However, when the Civil War broke out, the Knights of Liberty, no longer needed in an armed insurrection, disbanded with many of their members enlisting in the Union Army. After the war, the fraternal Order of Twelve - Knights and Daughters of Tabor membership grew particularly in the former slave states where it offered members burial insurance and weekly sick pay benefits.
After the war, Dickson became a member of the A.M.E. church and was licensed to preach in 1867. For the remainder of his years, he devoted himself to improving life for African Americans through education and health care through the Knights of Tabor organization.
The Manual of the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor written by founder Moses Dickson in 1891 outlined the elaborate, colorful regalia required to be worn at meetings and burial ceremonies. (see image reel above)
If the rules of the group were followed, when Sir Knight George Pruitt died in Conroe in 1914, the following ritual would have been conducted:
When notice of the death of a Sir Knight is received, the Chief Mentor (presiding officer of the temple) shall summon the temple to convene to prepare for the funeral. The other Sir Knights must attend in full uniform with their sword hilts and banner dressed in mourning, and the Jewels (badges) of the officers in appropriate dress.
On the casket of the deceased Knight will be placed his sword and helmet; If an officer, his jewel clothed in black crepe. On the day of the burial, the Knights will assemble in the Temple and march to the residence of the deceased with swords reversed. A procession is formed and marches to the church or place of public worship, While the body is lying in state, there should be two or more Knights on duty near the body in full dress. (page 139 of manual listed below)
At the burial place the coffin carried by the Knights is placed over the grave with the Knights forming a circle around it, the family at the foot and the chief Mentor and clergy at the head. The funeral service at the church and at the graveside involved a service of readings and set responses from the Knights in attendance. After the religious service at the graveside, they conducted their own services of prayers and songs. They marched around the grave, saluting with their swords and clapping their hands several times during the service. When the services were complete, they would move in procession back to the Temple.
The full-dress regalia for these solemn ceremonies was as follows from the Knights’ manual:
A black single-breasted coat, buttoned up to the neck in military style, yellow metal buttons with the letters UKT; black pants, helmet trimmed with gold lace; a shield with the letters UKT ornamented with a scarlet feather; a baldrie 4 inches wide black in the center with scarlet on each side, trimmed with ½ inch of gold lace; on left breast the letters UKT; a twelve pointed star on the solder with the figures 777 in the center; gauntlets reaching halfway to the elbow with letters UKT; buckskin gloves of light yellow; regulation sword with a silver scabbard, silver chains, scarlet belt with hook for cap and cup, black/navy cap trimmed with silver lace and UKT letters. (page 304 of manual listed below)
Many of these groups published newspapers about the Black community where they were located. These papers had various Taborian names. Only two copies of these newspapers have been discovered in Texas. Both copies were of the Taborian Banner published every Friday in Galveston. They are located in the archives of the University of Texas Brisco Center for American History.
These two copies can be seen online at: https://umbrasearch.org/catalog/04efea34331260c7e50aea6071e4e77c0372e047
Conroe also published a newspaper for a few years early in the 1900s. According to the 1913 N.W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual and Directory, a Taborian Banner newspaper was being published in Conroe in that year with a circulation of 2,000. Research has not yet been able to locate an existing copy of this paper, but it is believed that it was printed in Conroe for a few years from about 1909 to at least 1913.
There were many Taborian groups in other Southern states, the most notable in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where the group built a regional hospital for members. This was part of the Taborian general mission to provide services to their members. The Mound Bayou hospital in the Mississippi Delta region opened in 1942, providing the only health care in that region specifically for the black population until it merged with the county hospital system in 1983 and that building was closed. In 2012, a successful restoration project was begun on its building and in 2016 it reopened as the Taborian Hospital Urgent Care Clinic.
Research is ongoing into this important piece of local history in the early years of the 20th century to try to understand the Taborian national organization in the Montgomery County area. Although the Conroe group seems to have declined by 1920, large chapters of this group existed at Galveston, Corsicana, and other Texas cities well into the mid-century.
The Taskforce can be reached at [email protected] if anyone has family information about the Knights and Daughters of Tabor that they would like to share.
The Manual of the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor by Reverend Moses Dickson, printed in 1891 by A.R. Fleming and Co, St. Louis, Mo. Available online at https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-gildedage%3A23811
Addendum
Genealogy details about the Conroe Cemetery Knights and Daughters of Tabor provided by the Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project.
George Pruitt:
George Pruitt was born in Alabama and based on information contained in the 1870 U.S. Census, likely in the year 1839. On 9 August 1868, George Pruitt married Louisa Richie in Ellis, Texas. For the next thirty years the census records provided a vignette of their family as it grew in size and relocated across the state.
George and Louise appeared on the 1870 United States census in Ellis, Texas, with their one-year-old son, Jim. According to the census George worked as a farmer while Louisa kept house. The record shows that both George and his wife were born in Alabama.
Sometime between 1870 and 1880 George and Louisa moved to Montgomery County, Texas. By 1880 George and Louisa had added three more children to their family. Their family now included James eleven, Albert seven, daughter Martecia five, and nine-month-old John. The Pruitts had relocated to the city of Willis, Texas. According to the census, George continued to work as a farmer while Louisa kept house. Eleven-year-old James also worked on the farm and the family remained in Willis for at least the next ten years.
Only two daughters appeared with George and Louisa on the 1900 United States census in Willis: Nannie age seventeen, and Della age fourteen. While both the 1870 and 1880 censuses recorded George and Louisa’s birth locations as the state of Alabama, the 1900 census listed Louisa’s birth location as Missouri. During their thirty-three years of marriage, Louisa gave birth to seven children, six of whom were still living at that time. The census record shows that George continued to farm while his daughter Nannie worked as a house keeper.
In 1906 George Pruitt married Miss Jennette Terry on 21 October in Conroe, Montgomery, Texas.
The 1910 census noted that George and Johnie (Jeanette) married for five years, shared three children, a seven-year-old son Fisher, and two daughters, Margie two, and Mary three months. The record also shows their marriage as George’s second and Johnie’s first.
George Pruitt died on 9 February 1914 in Conroe, Montgomery, Texas. His burial took place in Conroe Community Cemetery. A stone memorial has with the initials “G P” and his memorial included the following inscription, “43 yrs 777 333 Sir Knight Boaz Temple 47 K&D Tabor 10012.” The inscription signified that George Pruitt was a member of the organization known as the International 777-Order of Twelve-333 of Knights of Tabor. One of the primary purposes of the organization included uniting members with ceremonies and oaths for the purpose of protecting and caring for one another. The Knights and Daughters of Tabor dedicated some of their charitable works to their “widows and orphans” and “sick or disabled members.”
Eliza Evans:
Eliza Evans was born 20 November 1870 and died 28 March 1912. The only record of her life is her tombstone in the Conroe Community Cemetery. The symbols and notations on the stone indicate that she was a member in good standing of Wild Rose Tabernacle no. 324, a local chapter of the International order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor - a benevolent and mutual aid society in the last part of the 1800’s and the early 1900’s. The term “DTR” (Daughter) most likely refers to her membership in the organization as opposed to a family relationship.
Carrie Johnson
Research is ongoing.
The 333 and 777 showed that she was a member in good standing. The DTR before her name means Daughter of Tabor. The I. O. O. 12 stands for the International Order Of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor.
Margarette Stewart
Research is ongoing.
The abbreviation DTR is for Daughter (of Tabor).
The I.O.O.12 stands for the International Order of Twelve.