Franklin Masonic Hall

A block off Main Street in Franklin, a Gothic Revival hall has housed Hiram Lodge No. 7 since 1823. It is the town’s oldest public building, and the lodge still meets there.

The lodge took its charter in 1809, and no Masonic hall in Tennessee has been in use longer than this one. The building became a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

Chickasaw leaders negotiated the Treaty of Franklin here with a federal delegation in August 1830, the first removal treaty concluded after the Indian Removal Act. President Andrew Jackson traveled to the council himself.

Federal forces occupied Franklin from 1862 to 1865 and used the hall as a hospital and barracks for the 2nd and 14th Michigan Cavalry. It took in wounded after the Battle of Franklin.

Staff at the preservation foundation describe men in blue uniforms in the downstairs foyer, and a pair of legs, with no body above them, crossing the main room.

Foundation directors Rachael Finch and Grace Abernethy told the Nashville Scene in 2019 about a recording of a girl singing in the hall. A man’s voice joins in, and no man was present.

The exterior is visible any time from the sidewalk, but this is an active lodge with no daily public hours. The foundation opens the interior for its own Haunted Hall Tours, about $5.