Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

A DeMolay Certificate Signed by Two Presidents

On October 14, 1922, a special ceremony took place in Washington, D.C. at the Scottish Rite’s Southern Jurisdiction’s headquarters building, known as the House of the Temple. Although Scottish Rite members attended, the gathering was, in fact, a DeMolay event. A uniformed degree team of twenty-eight boys from Kansas City Chapter—the original DeMolay chapter—had traveled from Missouri in order to institute Robert LeBruce Chapter of DeMolay, Washington D.C.’s second DeMolay chapter. The Kansas City contingent also included a number of adults, among them DeMolay’s founder Frank S. Land (1890-1959). Those present in the room included 107 boys chosen to receive the degrees, as well as the boys’ fathers. Members of the Southern Jurisdiction’s Supreme Council, who were already in town for their own meeting, also attended.

Among those receiving the two DeMolay degrees that evening was nineteen-year-old Robert Emmet Doyle, Jr. (1903-1988). His DeMolay certificate is pictured here. In anticipation of the institution of the chapter, members had unanimously elected Doyle as the first Master Councilor of the Robert LeBruce Chapter. The founding of the Robert LeBruce Chapter in 1921 was part of a larger trend. DeMolay experienced tremendous growth in its first few years. Although originally located only in Missouri, where it began, by 1922, after only three years in existence, DeMolay boasted chapters in nearly every U.S. state.

Doyle followed the tradition of many Masons, by having his certificate autographed by nearly thirty Masons hailing from California, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C. Among these signatures, those of two U.S. presidents, Warren G. Harding (1865-1923) and William H. Taft (1857-1930), stand out. Harding autographed and dated the certificate on April 24, 1922, while he was president. Because he was a Scottish Rite Mason, he added a “32°” after his name. Taft did not date his signature, but did include the name of his lodge, Kilwinning Lodge No. 356. All of the dated autographs are from 1922 and 1923, so it seems likely that Taft’s is also from around this time. In the early 1920s, the former president served as Chief Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Based in Washington, D.C., Doyle also collected signatures from various Scottish Rite Masons from the Southern Jurisdiction, including the long-serving Sovereign Grand Commander, John Cowles (1863-1954).

Just a few years after joining DeMolay, Doyle was raised a Master Mason in his father’s lodge, Lafayette Lodge No. 19. Doyle became a Scottish Rite Mason in the Southern Jurisdiction as part of a fifty-five member class upon which the 14th degree was conferred on October 28, 1924, at the Washington D.C.-based Mithras Lodge of Perfection No. 1. By the 1940s, Doyle had moved from Washington D.C. to California, where he lived until his death in 1988. His certificate, now in our collection, helps illustrate the deep connection between DeMolay and Scottish Rite Freemasonry.

Caption:
DeMolay certificate issued to Robert Emmet Doyle, Jr., 1922. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington, Massachusetts, Museum Purchase, A2017/024/001.

New to the Collection: Watercolor Mark Degree Record Made for Joseph Fish

Watercolor Mark Degree Record Made for Joseph Fish, 1818. William Murray (1756-1828), probably Montgomery County, New York. Museum Purchase, 2018.019.  Photograph by David Bohl.

In 1818 painter William Murray (1756-1828) created this watercolor for Joseph Fish, Sr., likely as a commemoration of Fish receiving the Mark Degree. A veteran of the Revolutionary War and a schoolteacher, Murray also painted colorful and charming family records and other works for friends and family in New York State. When he painted this work, Murray lived in Montgomery County, New York.  In the 1980s, collectors and researchers Arthur and Sybil Kern identified fourteen paintings signed by Murray over the course of his career. The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library recently purchased this one, formerly part of the Kern collection. It joins a family record signed by Murray that has been in the Museum’s collection for many years.

The Mark Degree commemoration that Murray painted for Joseph Fish shares decorative and stylistic elements with other works done by the artist.  Among these elements are borders of simple round flowers and of heart-shaped tulip-like flowers, different colored wavy lines, a field divided by lines and circular elements. In creating this work for Joseph Fish, Murray employed a palette of light brown, blue, red and yellow. He also, as befit the purpose of the work, included many Masonic symbols. At the top center of the drawing, Murray added an all-seeing eye. In the upper portion of the composition, at each corner, he drew a ladder, an ark, an urn and an anchor—all symbols used in Freemasonry.  Within the circle at the center, Murray included several Masonic symbols, such as an arch with a keystone, a letter G, stars, a plumb, a mallet, the moon and a coffin with a scythe on top of it. Beneath the large circle at the center, between “Joseph” and “Fish,” Murray drew a circle that surrouned Fish’s own mark—a symbol that Fish selected to represent himself—within a border of the letters HTWSSTKS. This group of letters are a mnemonic associated with the Mark Degree.  As his emblem, Fish chose a level. In Freemasonry this symbol represents equality and the lodge office of Senior Warden. Two other symbols in the watercolor related to lodge offices.  Crossed keys indicate the lodge treasurer.  A square and compasses with the sun at the center is an emblem found on many jewels given to lodge members who have served the lodge as Master.

In spite of these clues, little is known of Joseph Fish. The Kerns identified him as “a member of a Masonic lodge in Hoosick, NY.”  The owner of this painting may have been the Joseph Fish noted, in 1795, as the Junior Deacon of Patriot Lodge No. 39 of Pittstown, New York, a town neighboring Hoosick.  Masons established this lodge in 1794.  Short-lived, the lodge closed by 1818. Though its establishment is not noted in the Proceedings of the Grand Chapter of New York, a mark lodge associated with Patriot Lodge No. 39--Patriot Mark Lodge--had two members representing it at a meeting of the Grand Chapter in 1806. Both Federal Mark Lodge No. 37 in Hoosick and Patriot Mark Lodge in Pittstown were recorded as delinquent for at least two years’ worth of dues in 1815, suggesting that neither lodge thrived.  However, they may have been working long enough for Joseph Fish to have received the Mark Degree at one of them before 1818. Hopefully, further research will uncover more about Joseph Fish and about his connection to the artist William Murray. In the meantime, Murray's painting offers colorful evidence of Fish's participation in Freemasonry.

 

References:

George Baker Anderson, Landmarks of Rensselaer County, New York, (Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Company, 1897) 194.

Arthur B. and Sybil B. Kern, “Painters of Record:  William Murray and His School,” The Clarion: America’s Folk Art Magazine (New York, NY: The Museum of American Folk Art, Winter, 1987) 28-35.

Arthur B. and Sybil B. Kern, “William Murray: Early New York State Painter,” and “New York State Painters of Family Records: The School of William Murray,” typescripts, 1985. Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington, MA.

Proceedings of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of the State of New York, Vol. 1, 1798-1858, (Buffalo, NY: the Grand Chapter, 1871) 54, 63, 124.

A. J. Weise, History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County, (Troy, NY: J. M. Francis & Tucker, 1880), 87.

Freemasonry and the Growth of Nursing during the Civil War

Research into this recent acquisition to the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library highlights the Fraternity’s efforts to support the Union through the creation of the Masonic Mission, an agency created and “managed wholly by Masons.”

Circular letter from W. H. Hadley of the Masonic Mission to Mosaic Lodge, September 20, 1864.

As many readers may know, the support and care of sick and wounded soldiers throughout the war was carried out by private relief agencies and not by the federal government. The most well-known of these private agencies was the United States Sanitary Commission, which was created by an act of federal legislation in 1861 and was responsible for the set-up, staffing, and management of almost all Union hospitals during the war. However, as Union losses mounted in the early years of the Civil War, the Sanitary Commission found it more and more difficult to drum up the necessary support to meet the demand for female nurses by late 1862. As William Hobart Hadley, the author of this circular letter, a Mason, and an agent for the Sanitary Commission in the New England states, reported, anti-Republican sentiment permeated the areas he had canvassed for help. The hearts of people throughout the North had hardened to the fate of the Union by April 1863.

During this same period, another member of the Masonic family tree, Sarah P. Edson, a volunteer nurse, and possibly a holder of all the Adoptive Degrees, sought to address the growing need for nurses on the front lines. After her first effort to create a training school for women nurses met with opposition from the Sanitary Commission and the Surgeon General of the United States in a Senate committee, Edson sought the help of New York’s Freemasons. In response to Edson’s pleas, the “Army Nurses’ Association was formed . . . and commenced work under the auspices of the Masons” in the winter of 1862.

By the time of the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864), Union surgeons on the front lines requested that Edson, who had rushed to help at the front, send ten of her “nurses then receiving instruction as part of her class at Clinton Hall, New York.” The Masonic Mission was formed shortly after, and by the time of the Battle of the Crater (July 30, 1864), the agency worked in partnership with the Sanitary Commission, the Christian Commission, and other state and local agencies to help the Army create a “hospital tent city, which could care for twelve thousand patients.”

After a brief period of success, political clashes with the Sanitary Commission and the failure of its managers to pay its female nurses led to the demise of the Masonic Mission as a school for Army nurses. The Mission would refocus its efforts on aiding the North’s poor who were hit especially hard by the rising cost of coal for heating and flour. Sarah P. Edson’s ambitious plan to create an Army-based school for nursing would have to wait until Congress established the United States Army Nurse Corps in 1901, and the Navy followed suit in 1908.

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Captions

Circular letter from W. H. Hadley of the Masonic Mission to Mosaic Lodge, September 20, 1864. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 260.006.

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References

Attie, Jeanie. 1998. Patriotic Toil: Northern Women and the American Civil War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Brockett, L. P. and Mary C. Vaughan. 1867. “Mrs. Sarah P. Edson.” In Woman’s Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience, 440-447. Philadelphia: Zeigler, McCurdy & Co. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=0aDhAAAAMAAJ

Carpenter, C. C. 1903. “William Hobart Hadley, 21, Waterford Vt.” In Biographical Catalogue of the Trustees, Teachers and Students of Phillips Academy, Andover, 1778-1830, 143. Andover, Mass.: Andover Press. Accessed: 5 February 2019.https://books.google.com/books?id=HbNBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA143

Edson, Sarah P. 1865. “The Masonic Mission and the Five Points Mission.” New York Herald, January 9 1865. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1865-01-09/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1865&index=0&date2=1865

Frank, Linda C. 2012. “Our Famous Women, Part 1.” Auburnpub.com, March 11, 2012. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/our-famous-women-part-i/article_33d1b54c-6b05-11e1-a597-0019bb2963f4.html

Mitchell, E. L. “Masonic Charities.” Masonic Monthly 2, no. 3 (January): 118-120. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://archive.org/details/MasonicMonthlyVolII1864/page/n129

Morris, Rob. 1864. “The Masonic Mission.” The Voice of Masonry and Tidings from the Craft 2, no. 6 (June): 276-277. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=zd0cAQAAMAAJ&dq="masonic%20mission" 1864&pg=PA276   

Oates, Stephen B. 1994. Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War. New York: The Free Press.

Sarnecky, Mary T. 1999. A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Slotkin, Richard. 2009. No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864. New York: Random House.

A Gift to Cassia Lodge

The Holy Bible…, 1803. Printed by and for Samuel Etheridge, Charlestown, Massachusetts. Museum Purchase, RARE 06.25 .E84 1803.

In 1823 Medfield resident William Felt, along with other Freemasons in his community, petitioned the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to establish a Masonic lodge in Medfield. William Felt was possibly the William Felt (1766-1843, also spelled Feltt) who received his degrees at St. Andrew’s Lodge in Boston from 1793 to 1794. In September of 1823 seventeen Grand Lodge officers came to Medfield to constitute Cassia Lodge and install its officers. A month before this event William Felt had given the new lodge this 1803 Bible, published by Samuel Etheridge (1769 or 1771-1817) in Charlestown, Massachusetts, along with a square and compasses. The lodge needed these objects to officially open for meetings

Felt's gift was recorded in striking calligraphy on a dedication page in the Bible (at left). John Howe signed the inked calligraphy and ornamentation decorating the dedication page and the page opposite (at left, below). Howe undertook the work in December of 1823, a few months after Felt gave the Bible to the lodge. The dedication honored Felt’s gift grandly, expressing the wish that Felt’s “act of munificence may remain in perpetual remembrance.”  Howe was likely John Howe who took his degrees at Washington Lodge in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1816.  Later John Howe served as Junior Warden and Master of Washington Lodge. Intriguingly, records surviving from Washington Lodge contain pages ornamented in the same fashion as the page in the Cassia Lodge Bible (see below). Simon Willard, Jr. (1795-1874), a merchant and clockmaker who joined Washington Lodge in 1818 signed the decorations on a page from Washington Lodge's records in 1824. When these calligraphed pages are viewed together, the similar style of decorations suggest members of Cassia and Washington Lodges had shared tastes in decoration.

Though Cassia Lodge got off to a promising start, purchasing a building, “Academy Hall,” which members “fitted up for a lodge room,” the group did not prosper.  By 1830, Cassia Lodge had petitioned the Grand Lodge for help with its debt. The lodge, which claimed just twenty five members in 1830, owed $420. The Grand Lodge was not able to help, finding “no precedent…of the Grand Lodge paying the debts contracted by any subordinate Lodge.”  Though Cassia Lodge had likely stopped meeting years before, a local history recorded that the lodge gave up its charter in 1845, and sold its building “to the town for school purposes.” William Felt’s gift, with its richly decorated dedication page, serves as a tangible reminder of Cassia Lodge and its brief history.

 

References

Louis A. Cook, History of Norfolk County Massachusetts 1622-1918, (New York, NY: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918), 450.

Commemoration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Lodge of Saint Andrew, (Boston, MA:  The Lodge of Saint Andrew, 1907), 281.

The Holy Bible…, 1803. Printed by and for Samuel Etheridge, Charlestown, Massachusetts. Museum Purchase, RARE 06.25 .E84 1803.

Robert A. Domingue, A History of Washington Lodge A. F. & A. M., (Project 1996 Bicentennial Committee, 1996), 315, 345.

Hamilton Hurd, History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, (Philadelphia, PA: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1884), 446.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington Lodge Secretary's Records, 1824. Roxbury, Massachusetts. Extended loan from Washington Lodge, A.F. & A.M., Lexington, Massachusetts, EL77.004.29

 

New Year's! Shriners! Football!

Since 1925, the Shriners - one of the appendant orders in Freemasonry - have sponsored an annual all-star East-West Shrine football game. Two teams of senior-year football players, one comprised of players from colleges in the Eastern U.S. and the other with players from the West, meet in January to compete. Pictured here is the cover for the 1948 program for the game that was played on New Year's Day at San Francisco's Kezar Stadium (the first home stadium to both the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders).

Cartoonist Wiley Smith (1906-1994) illustrated the 1948 cover in a whimsical style reminiscent of his “Football Follies” comic. The cover depicts two smiling football players representing the West and East teams, as well as a fez-wearing Shriner handing off the football to a young boy wearing a leg brace, who has tossed his crutch aside.

Shriners Hospitals started providing free care to children with neuromusculoskeletal disabilities in 1922 when they opened their first hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. Starting in 1962 they expanded services to also treat children with burn injuries and then broadened their services again in 1978 to treat children with spinal cord injuries. The East-West Shrine Game is still around today and benefits the Shriners Hospitals for Children. Players from both teams visit a local Shriners hospital and meet with patients during the week leading up to the game.

Up until 1986, the East-West Shrine game was played on or around January 1. Because of the schedule of various Bowl games in early January, the date was moved up later, to take place after the bowl games are done. Up until 2005, the game was played in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2006, the game moved to Texas and then again in 2010 to Florida where it is played today. This year's game - the 94th - takes place on Saturday, January 19, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

But what about that 1948 game? The East won, 40-9. You can view the roster here. 

This program and one from the 1943 East-West game are on view in the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives reading room through June 1, 2019.

 

Caption:

Souvenir Program for Shriner’s East-West All-Star Football Game, 1948
Probably San Francisco, California
Museum Purchase, MA 110.003

Rare Prince Hall Acquisitions Offers Insights into African-American Philanthropy

In a blog post published in September for the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, we highlighted the Scottish Rite’s vision to be a fraternity that fulfils its Masonic obligation to care for its members. In this week’s blog post, we expand upon this theme by featuring three documents taken from the records of a Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in New London, Connecticut, Jepthah Lodge, No. 11. Taken together, these documents highlight the benevolent hearts of African American Freemasons as they respond to a request for aid from Reverend Octavius Singleton, the superintendent of the National Home Finding Society for Colored Children.

In the first document (see below), a letter from Reverend Singleton to Edward M. Stevens, the Junior Warden of Jepthah Lodge, Singleton recounts the difficult times faced by his organization and asks Stevens to petition his Lodge and church for donations.

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Letter from Reverend O. Singleton of the National Home Finding Society to Edward M. Stevens, June 28, 1922.

6-28-1922 Mr. Edward M. Stevens, J.W. My Dear Friend:      For 11 years we have been toiling almost single handed and alone to perform the duty every man and woman owes to the homeless child of our race. Our own people have not played the part of the good Samaritan toward these poor unfortunates, and had it not been for white friends, these poor little children would still be hungry and naked, out of doors, abused and mistreated. But through their aid, we have cared for 250 children, and have on hand now 50. We have the home in the city a picture of which I send herewith enclosed, and a farm of 240 acres, near Irvington, Ky., and 22 children down there practically out of doors from January 11th, to September 11th.      We accidently got burnt out on the farm last January, then we erected another building, but before it was completed, a cloud burst and tornado struck us Sunday, May 30th., and leveled it to the ground.      Through the kind assistance of Colored Lodges and Churches and the help of white friends –and one of these, Mr. Theo. Ahrens gave $200.00, and raised nearly $200.00 besides among his friends – we have about completed another new building. But we have run behind, we owe for coal, for bread, and groceries, for lumber etc. then too we have got to furnish the building and we’ve got to build a school house.

     My Dear Brother, I know you are a man of influence in your Lodge and church; and I don’t believe there is a Church or Lodge in the whole country, that would refuse to take up a collection to help a work like this, that has just gone through so much distress and suffering.
     Please send names of all giving 25¢ or more that we might publish same in the Colored papers. And know always, that any Lodge, any Church, any Community, in or outside of the State of Kentucky, has the right and privilege of placing children in our institution whether they help or not.
     Please do not pass this by, please don’t put it off but give every member a chance to show his fraternal and christian [sic] sympathy and pity and love for the poorest of the poor and the most needy of all creatures of the earth.

Yours for God’s little lambs,  

Rev. O. Singleton, Gen’l Supt.,
National Home Finding Society
1716 West Chestnut Street
Louisville, Kentucky

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A Picture of the National Home Finding Society's "Busy Bee Farm" taken on July 15, 1922. after the great fire and tornado of 1920

Singleton’s letter was read before the members of Jepthah Lodge on July 12, 1922, and a collection was held that raised $4.35 for Superintendent Singleton’s home for orphaned children. The Lodge’s donation was sent by money order to Singleton along with the letter depicted below. In addition to this act of kindness, the minutes of Jepthah Lodge show that at this meeting the Lodge also gave $15.00 to Mrs. Clara A. Burr, the widow of a deceased member.

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Letter from Jepthah Lodge, No. 11, to Reverend O. Singleton, July 18, 1922.

July 18th, 1922 The National Home Finding Society Rev. O. Singleton Dear Sir:-       Your letter of June 28th. addressed to Mr. Edward M. Stevens has been referred to Jeptha Lodge No. 11, F. & A. M. for our consideration.        We wish to assure you that we are greatly in sympathy with any and all enterprises which tend towards the advancement of our colored people as a  whole and any difficulties which any one community has in as deeply felt by us as though we were subject to the same misfortune.       We greatly commend the “National Home Finding Society” for the work they are doing to assist these little children who you state are practically homeless, and wish that were financially able to assist you more than we are doing just now; however, we have urged each member present to contribute as liberably [sic] as his means will afford and he can obtain the address of the Society from our Sec. should any of them wish to make a personal contribution.       Enclosed you will find a money order to the amount of $4.35 which was contributed by the few brethren who were present at our last regular communication and trust that it will assist you in your struggle to pay off current expenses.

We trust that you will be successful in all attempts you may make for the proper care of these lettle [sic] children.

Very Sincerely Yours,

Jeptha Lodge, No. 11, F. & A. M.
John Ware W. M.
John R. Leeks, Sec.

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Donations from people and organizations, such as Jepthah Lodge, No. 11, kept Octavius Singleton’s ambitious dream of providing a home for Kentucky’s homeless African American children alive for over 30 years in spite of tremendous obstacles.  As Jennie Cole of the Filson Historical Society writes, “World War II brought times of increasing hardship to the Home,” and when “combined with the ill health of” Singleton’s wife Harriet, his great partner and the matron of the home, Singleton was forced “to release the children in his care or find placement for them in other homes.” Yet, in spite of each setback, Singleton persevered; he continued to seek support for his work at Irvington, Kentucky, and for “blacks living in his hometown of Edwards, Mississippi and the surrounding region” until his death in 1950.

National Home Finding Society for Colored Children pamphlet, about 1922.

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Captions

Letter from Reverend O. Singleton of the National Home Finding Society to Edward M. Stevens, June 28, 1922. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 130.002.

National Home Finding Society for Colored Children pamphlet, about 1922. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 130.002.

Letter from Jephtha Lodge, No. 11, to Reverend O. Singleton, July 18, 1922. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 130.002.

References

Cole, Jennie. “Singleton family Papers, 1907-1983.” Filson Historical Society, last modified August 12, 2015. Accessed: 27 October 2018. https://filsonhistorical.org/research-doc/singleton-family-papers-1907-1983/

Kleber, John E., ed. “Civic, Fraternal, and Philanthropic Orphanages.” In The Encyclopedia of Louisville, 682. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. Accessed: 27 October 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=pXbYITw4ZesC&dq

Powell, Jacob W. Bird’s Eye View of the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church with Observations on the Progress of the Colored People of Louisville, Kentucky, and a History of the Movement Looking Toward the Elevation of Rev. Benjamin W. Swain, D.D. to the Bishopric in 1920. Boston: Lavalle Press, 1918. Accessed: 27 October 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=Vf8-AAAAYAAJ&dq

Slingerland, W. H. Child Welfare Work in Louisville: A Study of Conditions, Agencies and Institutions. Louisville, Kentucky: Welfare League, 1919. Accessed: 27 October 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=FFQHAAAAMAAJ

 

 

 

Illustrating Arctic Exploration

In 1853, physician Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857) led the Second Grinnell Expedition from London, England, to Rensselaer Harbor, Greenland. Kane, an experienced Arctic explorer and member of the First Grinnell Expedition in 1850, charted the coasts of Smith Sound and the Kane Basin in Greenland. American merchant Henry Grinnell (1799-1874) financed both tours, launched as search expeditions for the 1845 lost Franklin Polar Expedition.

Farewell, ca. 1889. Albert Operti (1852-1927), New York,
New York. Special Acquisitions Fund, 91.014.

After an arduous year at sea, Kane's vessel, the Advance became icebound. After two treacherous winters, Dr. Kane and his crew were forced to abandon the Advance. They navigated through the bay in their small whaling boats.  Before abandoning ship, Kane and his crew removed the figure-head from their ship as a remembrance of their journey. Kane described the experience in the 1856 book Arctic Explorations, Vol.II, writing:...“Our Figure-head, ‘The Fair Augusta,’ the little blue girl with pink cheeks, who had lost her breast by an iceberg, and her nose by a nip off ‘Bedevilled Reach,’ was taken from our bows and place aboard the ‘Hope.” “She is at any rate wood,’ said the men, when I hesitated about giving them the additional burden, ‘and if we cannot carry her far we can burn her.’”

Artist and Freemason Albert Operti (1852-1927), depicted Kane and his crew abandoning their icebound ship in his 1855 painting titled, Farewell. Operati, a scenic artist for the Metropolitan Opera House and later exhibit artist for the American Museum of Natural History, often focused on Arctic exploration in his paintings. The print shown here, in the Museum & Library collection and made after the painting in 1889, shows six men from the exploration team with dogs and sleds, preparing to board their escape boats. In the lower right hand corner, Operati included a square and compasses, the letter “G,” with a walrus and iceberg, illustrating his Masonic affiliation. Kane, also a Freemason, was a member of Franklin Lodge no. 134 in Philadelphia. Kane Lodge No. 454 in New York City, chartered in 1859, was named after and dedicated to Kane, who died in Havana, Cuba, in 1857.

According to an 1889 edition of The Freemasons Repository, Operati presented the Farewell painting to Kane Lodge, also in possession of the aforementioned figure-head from the Advance. To see more prints and paintings from the Museum collection depicting scenes from American history visit our new exhibition, "The Art of American History," on view through November 2019.

 

“Historical Plates” on view in “The Art of American History”

Boston Tea Party Plate, 1899. Sold by Jones, McDuffee & Stratton Co., Boston, Massachusetts. Manufactured by Wedgwood, Etruria, England. Loaned by the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, GL2004.2511.

In 1899 a notice in The Boston Globe announced that a local glass and crockery store, Jones, McDuffee & Stratton Co., had received “Belated Importations” on a steamship called Ultonia.  The announcement went on to say that, “From Wedgwood we will have open on Tuesday new designs of the series of Historical plates….”  This dessert plate (at left), decorated in dark blue with a scene depicting the Boston Tea Party, was among the fresh offerings.  In 1899, when they added this plate to the roster, Jones, McDuffee & Stratton boasted they had 28 different subjects in their series of historical plates.  By 1907, their series included over 70 subjects. A Boston-based importer, Jones, McDuffee & Stratton, commissioned English ceramics manufacturers to make plates and other dishes decorated with historic scenes. Artists working for the importers created the artwork that Wedgwood and other British companies used to decorate items.  From 1899 to 1904 Jones, McDuffee & Stratton sold and directed retailers to sell plates like this one for 50¢ each. By 1907, the company sold these plates for 35¢ in their 10-story wholesale and retail facility on Franklin Street. 

Unknown potters in Staffordshire, England, crafted this pitcher bearing portraits of American heroes such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry, along with the signatures of some of the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence. To the design in dark blue, manufacturers also added a variety of scenes from American history including Washington saying farewell to his officers, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Washington crossing the Delaware.  The largest images on the pitcher were places where important historic events had occurred, Independence Hall in Philadelphia and Faneuil (spelled Faneuiel on the pitcher) Hall in Boston, called put as the “Cradle of Liberty.”  Along the pitcher’s handle, the makers spelled out the words “American Independence 1776.”  The Rowland and Marsellus Company of New York imported this pitcher. They sold it, and a variety of other ceramic souvenir items, to retailers across the country.

Pitcher, ca. 1908. Imported by Rowland & Marsellus Co., New York, New York. Made in Staffordshire, England. Loaned by the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, GL2004.7122.

This plate and pitcher, as well as many prints and paintings of scenes from United States history are on view in “The Art of American History,” at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library through November 23, 2019.

 

References:

Ad, “Belated Importations,” The Boston Globe, 24 December 1899, 28.

Ad, “Genuine Wedgwood Old Blue Historical Plates,” The Boston Globe, 28 July 1907, 34.

"Washington's Reception on the Bridge at Trenton in 1785" Designed by John Ludlow Morton

"Washington's Reception on the Bridge at Trenton in 1785," 1845-1849. Designed by John Ludlow Morton (1792-1871), New York, New York. Engraved by Thomas Kelley (b. ca. 1795), probably New York, New York. Special Acquisitions Fund, 85.8.2.

In 1789, President-elect George Washington (1732-1799) traveled from his home in Virginia to New York City for his inauguration. On his journey, well-wishers gathered along the road to fête him and to celebrate an important moment—the swearing in of the new nation’s first president. This print, Washington's Reception on the Bridge at Trenton in 1785, (at left) shows an event that took place during Washington’s journey. The image was created at least 50 years after Washington traveled to New York.

In 1776 Washington had won an important battle in Trenton, New Jersey.  Later called the Battle of Trenton, during this conflict on December 26, 1776, Washington routed Hessian soldiers from Trenton, where they had established their winter quarters.  Washington and his troops surprised the Hessians.  After a brief fight, the Continental Army captured over 800 Hessian soldiers.  Historians credit this victory with improving colonists’ moral and helping the Continental Army sign on more recruits in the following weeks and months.  A week or so later, Washington fought a smaller battle at Assunpick Creek, near Trenton.  At this battle, Washington and his troops defended a position near the bridge over the creek and kept the British soldiers from crossing the creek.

As Washington journeyed to his inauguration over ten years after the battle, Trenton residents called attention to Washington’s battles in the area. At the bridge over the Assunpick, townspeople built an evergreen arch decorated with flags for Washington to pass through. This lithograph shows Washington in Trenton as a group of young girls in white dresses pay him tribute by strewing flowers in his path.  In the distance, men doff their hats. The print shows the arch draped with a banner that reads, “The hero who defended the mothers [in] Decem 26, 1775 will protect the daughters."  The motto linked Washington’s work as a military leader with his future role as United States President.

This print, designed by New York artist John Ludlow Morton (1792-1871) for Columbian Magazine, may have been based on the watercolor pictured below.

“The Hero who Defended the Mothers will Protect the Daughters,” 1845-1849. John Ludlow Morton (1792-1871), New York, New York. Special Acquisitions Fund, 85.8.1

If you are interested in this and similar prints of scenes from American history, be sure to come to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library to enjoy a new exhibition, “The Art of American History,” which opens to the public Saturday, November 17, 2018.

 

 

Inventing Fire

Tidaholm Safety Matches, 1860-1940. Tidaholm Match Company, Tidaholm, Sweden. Gift of George Ehrenfried, 89.7.10. Photograph by David Bohl.

In 1844, Swedish professor Gustaf Erik Pasch (1788-1862) invented the safety match. Swedish inventor and industrialist Johan Edvard (1815-1888) and his brother, Carl Frans Lundström (1823-1917), later refined and patented Pasch’s invention. They commercially manufactured non-phosphorous safety matches, similar to matches used today. The brothers opened a match factory in Jönköping, Sweden, in 1844 and debuted the safety matches to the public at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855. The non-phosphorous matches with a separate striking feature proved safer than the earlier iterations of friction matches, first used in the late 1820s. 

The majority of match manufacturers were headquarted in Sweden in the late 1800s, but there were also a number of factories in the United States and other parts of Europe. In the U.S., businessman Ohio Columbus Barber (1841-1920) founded the Diamond Match Company in Akron, Ohio, in 1881. The Diamond Company was the largest manufacturer of matches in the United States in the late 1800s and is still active today.

The Museum & Library owns a number of match boxes manufactured in Europe and the United States.

Sport Safety Matches, 1860-1940. Sport Safety Matches, Finland. Gift of George Ehrenried, 89.7.9. Photograph by David Bohl

These manufacturers include the Tidaholm Match Company, now known as Swedish Match, the Diamond Match Company, and Three Stars Safety  Match. Early match packaging was simple and usually only included a factory name and sometimes instructions for use. Later boxes not only illustrate the different brand names but also eye-catching  designs printed on the front and back. 

As matches gained popularity, businesses began to also use the packaging as a tool for inexpensive advertising and marketing. Match boxes featured illustrations related to food, liquor, beauty products, historical events, and even political propaganda. Match books enjoyed peak popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. Sales of matchbooks declined, as disposable lighters became more common and as numerous anti-smoking campaigns discouraged people from smoking.

 

 

  

Safety Matches, 1860-1940. The Diamond Match Company, Ohio. Gift of George Ehrenfried, 89.7.5. Photograph by David Bohl.