Henry Sampson, born in 1823 and later a Houston resident after moving from South Carolina in 1842, was affiliated with Houston’s Holland Masonic Lodge and served as both its Worshipful Master and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Texas. In 1859, sixteen men petitioned Grand Master Sampson to establish a new lodge in Lynchburg, and when the charter was granted on June 16, 1859, they named it in his honor. The members first met in a log cabin built specifically for lodge use on property owned by the lodge’s first Worshipful Master, M.M. Michan. After that first lodge was destroyed by fire and later Lynchburg lodges were destroyed by hurricanes in 1875, 1877, and 1900, the lodge moved to Crosby. In 1951, it relocated again to 114 Avenue D in Highlands, where its activities increasingly reflected community outreach through awards, civic participation, and fundraising for local charities and organizations. In 2009, Sampson Masonic Lodge No. 231 A.F. & A.M. celebrated its sesquicentennial and continued to preserve, promote, and diffuse the principles of free masonry throughout its community.