On July 26, 1854, while the "rock wall" area was still a part of Northwestern Kaufman County, East Trinity Lodge No. 157, A.F. & A.M. was set to work under dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Texas.
Two of the ten petitioners for the creation of East Trinity Lodge were Sterling R. Barnes and John O. Heath, the first residents to obtain land grants (in 1848) in what is now Rockwall County.
Barnes and Heath both had located their property improvements along the route of the Central National Road of the Republic of Texas, and on occasion were hospitable to travelers on that thoroughfare.
For their generation and area, both were moderately wealthy with a dozen years of their opening the land for settlement.
