James Monroe, Freemasons
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Mason website The Masonic Trowel lists Monroe as entering the Williamsburg Lodge No. 6 in 1776. At that time he was a 17-year-old student at the College of William and Mary, and heavily involved in anti-Crown activities on campus.
He's recorded as paying dues to the lodge from 1776 to 1780, according to "A Comprehensive Catalog of the Correspondence and Papers of James Monroe: Volume I."
Over the course of those four years, the future fifth president would drop out of college to fight in the Revolution, nearly die after getting shot during the Battle of Trenton, and then return to William and Mary to study law.
