Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Have Cartographer, Will Travel

When you travel for work, do you bring your own mapmaker to document your plans and triumphs?  Gilbert du Motier, the marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) did when, in 1777, he sailed from France for South Carolina to help fight in the American Revolution.  Among the over 40 maps, books and objects in “Journeys and Discoveries:  The Stories Maps Tell,” on view at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, is an intriguing map based on the work of Lafayette’s very own cartographer, Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy (1746-1804).   

Talented, experienced and about ten years older than his boss, Capitaine du Chesnoy (who, confusingly, held the rank of captain when he first arrived in the colonies) drew maps of the conflicts in which Lafayette participated in 1777, 1778 and after.  Eighteenth-century military officers valued mapmaking skills.  Understanding landscape, waterways and structures helped military strategists plan campaigns, stage retreats and organize travel.  Officers also used maps and drawings to communicate important ideas and information to their colleagues, superiors and supporters.   

Capitaine du Chesnoy made several manuscript maps portraying some of Lafayette’s different military activities.  At least eighteen of these maps survive in American and European collections.  Six ink and watercolor maps now form part of the collection of the Library of Congress.  You can view them on the library’s website.  When Lafayette traveled to France in 1779, he asked Capitaine du Chesnoy to put together a cartographic summary of the battles of the American Revolution up to that point for Lafayette to share with King Louis XVI (1754-1793). A Paris printer produced an engraved version of the summary map and made it available to the public in 1779.  One of these printed maps--the only one of Capitaine du Chesnoy’s manuscript maps known to have been engraved--is on view in “Journeys and Discoveries.” Come see it and compare Captiaine du Chesnoy’s work with other 1700s maps portraying military events--such as Thomas Hyde Page's (1746-1821) summary of the battle of Bunker Hill--and others. 

Sources:

Paul E. Cohen, “Michel Capitaine de Chesnoy, the marquis de Lafayette’s Cartographer,” The Magazine Antiques, January 1998, 170-177.

Photo credits:

Carte du Theatre de la Guerre, 1779.  Cartography by Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy.  Paris, France.  Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, 029-75. Photograph by David Bohl.

A Plan of the Action at Bunkers-Hill…, 1775-1778. Compiled by Lieutenant Thomas Hyde Page.  Engraved and published by William Faden (1749-1836), London England.  Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, 071-86.  Photograph by David Bohl.

 

A 1794 Masonic Medal from New London

In 1794 Freemasons in New London, Connecticut, had much to celebrate.  After several years of inactivity, Union Lodge (now Union Lodge #31) received a dispensation from the newly organized Grand Lodge of Connecticut.  As a sign of enthusiasm, one lodge member had this attractive gold medal manufactured and engraved.

Around the time this medal was crafted, Masons on both sides of the Atlantic commissioned personal badges or medals made out of precious metals to wear to lodge meetings and at processions.  Unlike jewels of office that were owned by a lodge, these badges belonged to individual Masons.  Men wore them as a sign of their connection with Freemasonry, its ideals and place in the community.  Engraved with Masonic symbols and often the owner’s name and initiation date, these badges linked, in an enduring way, Masons with the organization they valued.

Many of these badges, sometimes called chapter medals, although engraved by different craftsmen and owned by men in different parts of the country, share similarities in shape, size and iconography.  Decorated on both sides, this small oval medal—about 1 ½ inches long—bears a Latin motto, multiple Masonic symbols, the owner’s initials, J. S. or J. P., and the year, 1794, with the words, “Member of Union Lodge N. London.”  This medal also features Masonic symbols such as an open bible, square and compasses, various working tools, an all-seeing eye, a dove and ark, pillars, suns, moons, stars, and a coffin; symbols associated with Freemasonry’s first three degrees.  On the medal the engraver also illustrated symbols related to Royal Arch Freemasonry.   

New England chapter medals emerged from an English practice.  As early as 1776 the frontispiece of a London-printed Masonic expose, Jachin & Boaz, or An Authentic Key to the Door of Free Masonry, showed an engraved medal featuring many of the same symbols as seen on this and other chapter medals.  Text within the publication also described the badges noting that:  “These medals are usually of silver…on the reverse of these medals…some even add to the emblems other fancy things that bear some analogy to Masonry.”  American engravers might have used illustrations in Jachin & Boaz or other publications as models for their depiction of Masonic symbols.  As well, American publishers issued versions of Jachin & Boaz that opened with the same frontispiece as the British editions.  Additionally, small emblems similar to this one were easily carried when their owners traveled.  One craftsman might copy or seek inspiration from another engraver’s work; be it a medal, jewel, a certificate or Masonic apron.  Residents of New London, a seaport, likely had the chance to socialize and do business with Masons from other parts of the country and the world. 

So far, research has not turned up a potential owner of this medal, but there are still many avenues to explore.  Although small, this carefully engraved medal, because it was made of gold, a scarce and costly material, was not ordered or worn casually.  Whoever commissioned and wore this medal in 1794 took pride in his association with Freemasonry.   

Sources:

John D. Hamilton, The Material Culture of the American Freemasons. Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1994. pp. 121-133, 140-142.

Barbara Franco, Masonic Symbols in American Decorative Arts.  Scottish Rite Masonic Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1976. pp. 25-26.

Photo credits:

Medal, ca. 1794. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, Museum Purchase, 2000.059.7b.

 

David H. Cole’s Belt Plate

This object, an 1810s belt plate in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, carries several hints about its original owner:  a name, regiment number and a selection of Masonic symbols. But even with this comparatively rich group of clues, the story of this belt plate and the man who wore it remains elusive. 

Belt plates formed part of military dress in the late 1700s and into the 1800s. Officers and soldiers who wore cartridge boxes and swords, bayonets or other weapons suspended them on leather straps. During the War of 1812, when this plate was made, some soldiers wore decorative metal plates, often brass, on their uniform straps, at their chest or at their shoulders (you can see examples of both British and American 1812-era plates here). The U. S. Army uniform regulations did not detail plate designs until the 1820s. Many 1812-era regiments had their own uniform requirements and it is hard to know how closely soldiers followed regiment and Army uniform regulations. This cast brass belt plate may have been one Cole purchased or one issued to him and later engraved by a craftsman at his request. Either way, the engraving on this plate made it a one-of-a-kind object in Cole’s time and today.

An enlistment record for the 21st U. S. Infantry Regiment notes that David H. Cole, a trader, aged 23 and born in Cornish, Massachusetts (now Cornish, Maine), enlisted at Salem, Massachusetts, in April,  1814.  He served through May of the next year. The recorder also noted that Cole was 5’ 7 ¾” tall, with blue eyes, light hair and a light complexion. Another record tells us that for his service, in 1816 Cole earned a 160-acre land grant in Illinois. 

Records maintained at the Grand Lodge of Masons in Maine notes that a man named David Hammond Cole--initiated, passed and raised in 1814--was a member of Pythagorean Lodge No. 11 of Fryeburg.  Was this the same David H. Cole whose name is on the belt plate?  Possibly.  So far it has not been possible to confirm that David H. Cole and David Hammond Cole were one and the same, but it is clear that the David H. Cole who had the plate engraved identified himself with Freemasonry.  His plate features Masonic symbols including: columns, various working tools and symbols of office, as well as a square and compasses and an all-seeing eye.  The crenellated structure at the center of the square and compasses is not a standard Masonic symbol, but must have held meaning for David Cole, since he had it placed at the very center of his belt plate.

Cole’s decorated belt plate may be one-of-a-kind, but related objects exist.  The collection of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts also includes an earlier belt plate engraved with a name and Masonic symbols.  This silver plate bears a date, 1787, and an owner’s name, Elnathan Holmes, Jr. (b. 1763).  Most of the symbols and the motto depicted on Holmes’ plate came from the frontispiece of a Masonic expose that had first been published in London in the 1760s, Jachin and Boaz; or An Authentic Key to the Door of Free-Masonry.  The engraver who decorated Cole’s plate used a different—and less readily identifiable—source.  Both Holmes and Cole left behind intriguing puzzles.  More importantly, they left enduring evidence of their pride in their military service and in their association with Freemasonry. 

Update: Thanks to help from the Bonney Memorial Library in Cornish, Maine and the Cornish Historical Society, we have some more information about the David H. Cole (1789-1841) who owned this belt plate.  His parents were Capt. Henry Cole (1764-1840) amd Olive Hammons (d. ca. 1805).  David Hammons Cole earned his living as a trader in Cornish, lived in Limington, Maine in the 1820s and later worked as an merchant and auctioneer in Portland, Maine.

 
References:

Sydney C. Kerksis, Plates and Buckles of the American Military (Kennesaw, GA:  The Gilgal Press, 1974)

Robert L. Taylor, Early Families of Cornish, Maine (Rockport, Me.: Picton Press , 1993), p. 29

Photo captions:

Belt plate, ca. 1814.  Special Acquisitions Fund, 85.10.

Belt plate, 1787.  Collection of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, GL2004.4588.  Photograph by David Bohl.

Back to Our Roots: The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, Inc.

In honor of the nation's bicentennial, the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction dedicated the museum and library in April of 1975. Just a few years before, Sovereign Grand Commander George A. Newbury (1895-1984), the motivating force behind the museum and library, conceived the institution “… to tell a thrilling story--the story of America.” Since then, the museum has collected objects, documents and books related to American and Masonic history and presented exhibitions and programs exploring the same subjects. 

On official documents founders called the museum the “Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Inc.” but did business and promoted the organization as the Museum of Our National Heritage or as the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum of Our National Heritage. In 2001, the public name of the museum was shortened to National Heritage Museum, but our legal name remained Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Inc.  Over the last few years, we have been getting back to our roots and using our legal name accompanied by the symbol of the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction—a crowned double-headed eagle with the motto Deus Meumque Jus (God and My Right) to acknowledge our founding, special connection to and continuing support by the Freemasons of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.  You may have seen the name and logo changes in our publications, promotional material, on our building signage and now we feature the change here, on our blog.

As it has for the past four years, our blog will continue to explore intriguing aspects of our object, archives and library collections.  We will also keep readers abreast of exhibitions, programs and other special events.  Right now we are preparing for an exhibition of selections from our rich map collection—in its first year alone, the museum purchased over 30 historic maps for its holdings.  This image shows a detail of one of the maps that will be featured in the upcoming exhibition, "Journeys and Discoveries:  The Stories Maps Tell."  Most importantly, our blog is a place where we can hear from you.  If you have a question or comment, please get in touch!

Photo credit: 

Detail from Carte tres curieuse de la Mer du Sud…, 1719.  Chatelain family, Zacharie Chatelain (d. 1723) and Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743).  Amsterdam, Holland.  Van Gorden-Williams Library, 001-1975 1719.  Photograph by David Bohl.

Scottish Rite Double-Headed Eagle Pendant, ca. 1912.  Gift of the Supreme Council, 33º, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA, 2010.042.61a-b.  Photograph by David Bohl.

 

 

Visitors enjoy "Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography" Closing January 5, 2013

If you have a spare hour, are entertaining visitors from out-of-town or need a change of pace, come to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library to enjoy "Lasting Light:  125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography" in its final weeks at the museum.  If visitor comments are any indication, you will be glad you did!

We love reading visitors' remarks to see how folks touring the galleries respond to our exhibitions.  In "Lasting Light:  125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography" many visitors have been moved by the photographers' work on display.  Here is one comment: "As a photographer I came to be inspired and I was -- over and over!"  Other visitors left ready to pack their bags:  "How inspiring--I visited [the Grand Canyon] many years ago but plan to return.  Thank you."  Some even experienced the canyon without even leaving the state:  "Thoroughly enjoyed this exhibit--I've wanted to visit the Canyon but as yet have not -- this exhibit had me almost standing within it.  Thanks to all the patient and talented photographers who contributed...."  More visitors summed up their feelings in just a few words:  "Amazing Wonders" or "Impressive! Beautiful! And the colors!" 

Please come and let us know your impression of the varied photographs in the exhibition. We would be thrilled to hear from you in the comments section below or in the gallery.

“Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography” is an exhibition created by the Grand Canyon Association and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The Grand Canyon Association is a non-profit, membership organization founded to support education, scientific research and other programs for the benefit of Grand Canyon National Park and its visitors.

For further information about this exhibition or planning a trip to the Museum, visit our website or call  781-861-6559.

 

Photo credits:

Snow Covered Ponderosa Pine, North Rim, Jack Dykinga, 1992.  Photo courtesy Jack Dykinga

Rainbow, S&A Partners, 1995.  Photo courtesy S&A Partners

Rethinking Zoeth Knowles

A sharp-eyed and knowledgeable blog reader recently got in touch with us to suggest that a previous post about a Civil War era photograph in our collection was due for re-examination.

Based on the information provided to the museum by the Cloues family, who donated the photograph in 1996, staff had identified the subject of this and the previously posted photograph as Zoeth Knowles (b. 1843).  Research undertaken for our 2007 exhibition, “Remember Me:  Highlights from the National Heritage Museum”, told us that Boston resident Knowles served in the Civil War as a member of the Signal Corps.  A late 1800s history of this group included an interesting reminiscence that at their instruction camp in 1862, “Members were collected from all points of the compass….Those who were present at the camp will recollect the varied uniforms, Zouave and others, worn by the various members.”  The case for Zoeth Knowles as the subject of the photograph seemed strong, until a new opinion came our way.

Our blog reader told us that, based on the portrait subject’s particular uniform, this soldier could not have been a member of the Signal Corps but was, in fact, part of Company K of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment of the Infantry, known as the “Boston Tiger Fire Zouaves.”  A history of the regiment noted that members of this company wore light blue baggy trousers, dark blue jackets with buttons and dark blue fez caps.  This may be the uniform depicted in the photographs.

These photographs came to the museum with a quilt made for Mary Eliza Knowles (b. ca. 1844) in recognition for her service as president of the Massachusetts Women’s Relief Corps.  The Women's Relief Corps was an auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization for Union veterans of the Civil War.  It also carved out its own areas of interest and action. In the 1890s the WRC promoted "patriotic instruction for our public schools" and the related project of displaying flags in schools and other public places. Each of the 64 blocks in this quilt bears the identification number of a Women's Relief Corps' local chapter and, in some cases, the chapter's name and location.

Mary Eliza Knowles married former Signal Corp member and cabinetmaker Zoeth Knowles in 1866.  Prompted by our reader’s suggestion, I looked into the connections between the Knowles and Cloues families.  Soon, a feasible explanation for the donors’  probably incorrect identification of Zoeth Knowles as the subject of the photograph emerged.  In making the gift of the quilt and photographs to the museum, the donor related that Mary Eliza Knowles was her great aunt (she was actually her great-great aunt). As generations passed, it appears the Cloues family lost sight of which uncle the images that accompanied the quilt portrayed.  Both the husband and the brother of the quilt-recipient served in the Civil War, so it would be easy to mistake one for the other!  Like his brother-in-law, Mary Knowles’ brother, Theodore Cloues (ca. 1832-1919), fought in the Civil War.  He served in Company K of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment of the Infantry--the “Boston Tiger Fire Zouaves.” Before the war and after he earned his living as a sail maker in the Boston area.  Based on the question and information posed by our reader, Theodore Cloues is likely the subject of this photograph and the other view posted earlier. 

Regardless of this mix-up, we are grateful to the Cloues family's gift to the museum as well as to our knowledgeable blog readers.  Please keep your comments coming!

References:

J. Willard Brown, The Signal Corps, U. S. A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston, Massachusetts:  U. S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, pages 59 and 812.

Ernest Linden Wiatt, History of the Nineteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1865, Salem, Massachusetts: The Salem Press, 1906, pages 2-3.

Photo credits:

Theodore Cloues, ca. 1864. Unidentified Photographer, Probably Boston. Gift of the Cloues Family, 96.045.3.  Photograph by David Bohl.

Quilt, 1890-1891. Various Makers, Massachusetts.  Gift of the Cloues Family, 96.045.1.  Photograph by David Bohl.

 

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A Crazy Quilt

Are you a fan of Pilgrims?

Before the advent of air conditioning, men and women carried fans to help them keep cool.  As one scholar has described, “decorative hand-held fans brought relief to an overdressed, overheated society.”  These dress accessories also added color, movement and glamour to the indoor landscape for centuries.  Among the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library’s collection of fans from the 1800s and the early 1900s is this example:  a paper folding fan with bamboo sticks that bears a photogravure of a famous American painting, Robert W. Weir’s Embarkation of the Pilgrims. 

Robert Weir (1803-1889) first painted this work in 1843 for the Rotunda of the U. S. Capitol.  There it is joined by other depictions of pivotal events drawn from American history, such as Columbus’s landing in the New World and De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi.  Decades later, Weir created a smaller version of the work that fair organizers exhibited at the 1876 Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia.  Americans also became familiar with Weir’s version of the Pilgrims' departure from Holland through printed versions.  As well, from 1863 through the early 1900s, a version of Weir’s painting decorated $50 bank notes. 

Makers likely crafted this fan in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The Photo Gravure Company of New York printed the image on the center of the fan.  Craftsmen assembled the fan, affixed metal brilliants to its surface and embellished the fan with painted flowers.   Underneath the photogravure of Weir’s painting, the printer featured a quote, “Truly dolful was ye sight of that sad and mournfull parting.”  William Bradford (1590-1657), the chronicler of the Pilgrims' settlement, penned those words to describe the travelers’ feelings as they left friends and family behind and started on their journey to Massachusetts.

For a description of the museum's painting, "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in America, a.d., 1620," by Charles Lucy (1814-1873), see this past post.  If you have any information or questions about this fan, please leave us a comment below!

Reference:

Anna Gray Bennet, Unfolding Beauty:  The Art of the Fan, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1988, p. 12.

Object credit:

Fan, 1875-1900.  Printed by Photo Gravure Co., A. C. Bosselman, New York, New York.  Gift of The Estate of Russell J. and Vera L. Wilder, 75.69.99.

 

 

Keeping Cozy: A Masonic Fireback

As autumn takes hold, keeping warm reemerges as a daily concern.  One of the most fashionable and intriguing heating-related objects in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library is this fireback, made for and sold by merchant and ship’s chandler Joseph Webb (1734-1787) sometime between 1756 and 1787.

In Webb’s day, people installed thick cast iron plates like this one into the back of their fireplaces.  They could be set into or rest against the rear of a fireplace.  Called chimney backs at the time, these plates served a dual purpose.  The iron protected bricks in the fireplace from heat and flame.  The substantial metal slabs also trapped heat that helped extend the warmth of the fire. 

Webb’s fireback, with its bow-shaped top and exuberant folliate decoration, would have brought style into its setting.  Its iconography would have said something about the values and interests of its owner.  Webb belonged to the Lodge of St. Andrew's in Boston.  Perhaps seeking clients among his Masonic brethern, he had a large version of the arms of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge (derived from the arms of the Grand Lodge in London) cast into this fireback.  Along with the arms, the Massachusetts Grand Lodge's motto, "Follow Reason," ornaments this fireback. Webb held several offices at the Masschusetts Grand Lodge and served as the Grand Master from 1777-1783 and again from 1784-1787.  The symbols on this fireback certainly spoke to Webb's identity and likely resonated with Masonic consumers.  When a homeowner displayed this fireback in his domicile, he proclaimed himself not only fashion conscious, but also allied with Freemasonry.  

Joseph Webb had a flair for advertising.  To promote his business, he had a message cast into the bottom edge of this fireback:  "Sold by Joseph Webb, Boston."  In 1765 he commissioned fellow entrepreneur and St. Andrew’s Lodge member, Paul Revere (1734-1818), to engrave a splendidly ornamented trade card (view a copy in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society).  The card listed and depicted many of Webb’s products and let shoppers know where to find him.  As noted on his trade card, Webb sold household necessities such as pots, kettles, spiders (a kind of skillet with legs), window sash weights and chimney backs.  He also provided more specialized iron goods to craftsmen like “Fry Kettles for Whaling” and “Hatters Basons & Irons.” 

Researchers have suggested that the enterprising Revere may have cast firebacks for Webb.  He owned a furnace in Boston and paid craftsmen to carve the kinds of wooden patterns used in producing firebacks.  A 1793 receipt from Revere to David Greenough  shows that Revere did sell firebacks.  Greenough purchased three “Iron backs” as well as some “Window Weights” from Revere.  A receipt or other documentation would help clarify if Webb ordered this and other firebacks he sold at his shop from Revere.

Another of Webb’s firebacks decorated with arms and motto of the of Massachusetts Grand Lodge survives.  It forms part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and came out of a Cape Cod home.  A similar example, with a history of having been taken from the cargo of a British trading vessel captured during the American Revolution and installed in the John Cabot House in Beverly, also survives.  Decorative and intriguing, these objects offer clues about both business connections and domestic life in the 1700s.

Photo credit:

Fireback, 1756-87.  Boston, Massachusetts.  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Howard W. Johnson, 83.26.  Photo by John M. Miller.

References: 

Donald L. Fennimore, Iron at Winterthur, The Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum, Inc., Winterthur, Delaware, 2004, page 53-54, 400.

Morrison H. Hecksher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775:  Elegance in Ornament, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1992, page 51, 220-222.

D. A. Massey, History of Freemasonry in Danvers, Mass., C. H. Shepard, Peabody, Massachusetts, 1896, page 48.

Research Department, Beverly Historical Society, Beverly, Massachusetts.

A “Segar Box” and Its Intriguing History

If you come to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library this summer, look for this luminous Japanese lacquer box decorated with Masonic symbols. Although the box is small in size, there is a lot of history behind it.

Japanese craftsmen decorated the top of this metal box with designs taken from a book about Freemasonry that had first been published in London in the 1760s, Jachin and Boaz; or An Authentic Key to the Door of Free-Masonry. The decorators built up the box’s surface with layers of smooth, glossy varnish that covered golden Masonic emblems. Specks, chips and shaped pieces of iridescent mother-of-pearl highlight the different symbols. Gold diagonal bands and sprigs of gingko, chrysanthemum and lotus blossoms ornament the sides of the box. In 1797 publishers issued a new edition of Jachin and Boaz; or An Authentic Key to the Door of Free-Masonry. This version included changes to the book’s frontispiece. The frontispiece, an illustration of a Masonic medal, had formerly shown an oval shaped medal. The new image featured a rectangular medal with clipped corners, similar to the corners of this box. As well, the refigured illustration included additional symbols such as “Hiram’s Tent” and the “Entrance or Porch to Solomon’s Temple.” The craftsman who made this box used the 1797 frontispiece as a model for his rendition of Masonic symbols. He included both of these newly-added symbols on the container, one at the center, one on the left.

The museum purchased this box in 1978. With it, the seller included an 1835 letter which outlined the history of the “segar box,” or cigar box.  In this note, a past owner of the container, Benjamin Whitman, said that the box “was given to Genl Stevens of New York-a revolutionary Officer by Genl George Washington-Commander in Chief of the American Armies.....” The missive goes on to relate that after Washington died [in 1799] Gen. Ebenezer Stevens (1751 or 1752-1823) presented the box to Gen. John Winslow of Boston. He continued to recall that, “in it was placed a leaf, that grew on a bush that grew over the Tomb of Washington, the first year after he was deposited in the Tomb.” Winslow cherished the gift and when he died, the writer reports, “he gave the same precious memorial to me—and I now give the same to my beloved son—George Henry Whitman, whose former name was John Winslow Whitman, having been named for my esteemed friend.”

Before a Boston family valued this heirloom for its associations with America’s first president, the little box had to travel a long way. In the 1700s, Japan was closed to Westerners, only the Dutch enjoyed an agreement which allowed them to trade with Japan. So how did this box get to the United States? One possible explanation is that in the late 1700s Dutch traders, to avoid British warships, chartered a few American ships to help them move cargo from Nagasaki to Java and back. Captain James Devereux of the Franklin undertook one of these voyages from April to December of 1799 and returned to Boston in 1800. He brought back several items from this journey, some of which are now at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.  Rearchers have suggested that he traded for this box on that voyage. If so the box did not make it to the United States in time for Washington to give the exotic present to Stevens himself--Washington died in 1799. The 1835 letter written by John Whitman that accompanied the box does not tell this story.  It does, however, suggest that Stevens, the intended recipient, eventually owned the box. Based on Whitman’s letter, sometime after Washington's death, Stevens presented the box to John Winslow of Boston. In 1819, Winslow gave it to Benjamin Whitman, who in turn passed it on to his son in 1835. 

If you have any thoughts or questions about this box and its intriguing history, please leave us a comment below.

Photograph:

Cigar Box, ca. 1799. Nagasaki, Japan. Special Acquisitions Fund, 78.20.1.

A Tax Protest Relic

What is in this little vial, only 2½ inches tall?  Its contents are a carefully preserved relic; one that harkens back to a celebrated tax protest in Revolutionary-era Boston.  The material collected in this container is tea, said to have been caught in the boots worn by one of the participants in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773.  It is on view in the exhibition "Sowing the Seeds of Liberty:  Lexington and the American Revolution."

In the 1700s, Britain fought a number of wars in the colonies--in particular, the French and Indian War (1756-1763)--at huge expense. These wars, in part undertaken to preserve and protect these settlements, effectively doubled Britain’s national debt. To pay this debt, the British parliament instituted new taxes on the American colonies. Used to setting and collecting taxes at the town and colony levels through their own elected representatives, residents balked at the change.  Many felt the new taxes went against their basic rights as Englishmen.  Protests greeted the first taxes in the 1760s and continued as the British government tried different ways to generate tax revenue from the colonies.

Boston’s port-town economy relied on trade, so taxes on imported goods especially pained city residents.  The 1767 Townshend Act taxed imported glass, paper, paint and tea. To voice their objections to it, colonists harassed the customs commissioners and boycotted the taxed goods. These protests, coupled with the high cost of enforcement, prompted the British government to repeal the act in 1770.  However, parliament retained the tax on tea in the act that followed because, as David Hackett Fischer has stated, it was “so small that British ministers believed even Boston might be willing to swallow it.” 

This law, the 1773 Tea Act, brought tensions between the colonists and the British government to the breaking point.  The almost bankrupt East India Company asked the British government for assistance with their dire financial situation. The Tea Act granted the company the right to sell tea in the colonies tariff and duty free.  As a result, the company representatives’ tea was cheaper than that sold by local merchants. Both Boston’s merchants and people concerned about principles of representation and liberty—two groups that had not always seen eye-to-eye—were moved to protest.  

Some colonists, like the residents of Lexington, Massachusetts, expressed their views about the tax by agreeing as a community to not use tea in their homes.  They declared anyone who did “an Enemy to this Town & to this Country.” Residents promised that those who purchased and drank tea, “…shall by this Town be treated with Neglect & Contempt.”  To underscore their views Lexingtonians, as it was reported in the Boston papers, “brought together every ounce [of tea] contained in the town, and committed it to one common bonfire.”  You can read more about the bonfire in a previous post.

Some Bostonians chose to protest in a more violent manner. On December 16, 1773, about 150 men disguised as Native Americans dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston harbor.  Interestingly, the protesters—even as they destroyed the East India Company’s product—took care to respect others’ property and public order.  Organizers punished one protester who purloined tea for his own use.

The British government took a dim view of this protest.  A government investigation of the event called it a, “…crime of high treason, namely to the levying of war against His Majesty.”  The government retaliated for these, “violent and outrageous Proceedings at the Town and Port of Boston” by passing what the colonists called the Intolerable Acts in 1774.  Just sixteen months later, Massachusetts militia members and British Regulars exchanged the first shots of a civil war at Lexington and Concord. 

Did participants know they had taken part in a history-shaping protest?  Perhaps. Several people collected and later preserved relics of the event, such as another sample of tea found the next morning on the shores of Dorchester Neck that is part of the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.  In 1973, as the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts and other organizations in the commonwealth prepared for the American Bicentennial, Paul Fenno Dudley (1894-1974) donated this vial of tea to the Grand Lodge’s Museum.  The Grand Lodge's collection is now housed at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library in Lexington and you can see this vial of tea and other relics in "Sowing the Seeds of Liberty:  Lexington and the American Revolution."

Photograph:

Vial, 1800s or 1900s. Unidentified maker.  Tea, 1700s.  Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts Collection.  Gift of Paul F. Dudley, 1973, GL2004.1868a-c.  Photograph by David Bohl.

“Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea ships into the River, at Boston.” Engraving from W.D. Rev. Mr. Cooper. The History of North America. London: E. Newbery, 1789. Library of Congress.

References:

Theodore Draper, A Struggle for Power:  The American Revolution (New York: Times Books, 1997), 415.

David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1994), 25-26.

Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Lexington, Vol. I, (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913), 84.

Massachusetts Historical Society, “Object of the Month: ‘Boston Harbor a tea-pot tonight.’” http://www.masshist.org/objects/2006february.cfm (accessed on May 22, 2012).

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, exhibition labels from “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty:  Lexington and the American Revolution,” 2007 through the present.

Anita P. Worthen, The First Tea Party Held at Lexington? (Lexington, Massachusetts:  Lexington Bicentennial Committee, 1973).