Odd Fellows Props: David's Harp

Recently, a generous donor presented this autoharp (at left) to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library for our collection. The donor was intrigued by the label visible inside that mentions the Masonic Temple in Chicago, Illinois.  The reference to the Masonic Temple on the label relates to the location of the autoharp’s retailer rather than any implied Masonic ritual use.

A “Pianoette” like this one was first patented in 1916. For more on its development, see this website.  As the label indicates, Samuel C. Osborn was selling these instruments for $25 apiece.  While these were produced and sold for general musical use, there are similar autoharps that appear in catalogs for Odd Fellows lodges (see photo on right from a 1908 Pettibone Brothers Mfg. Co. catalog).  The catalog explains that it could be "very easily learned by anyone having any musical ability."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Odd Fellows ritual, a “self-playing harp” is a prop for the character of David in the fraternity’s First, or Friendship, Degree. The ritual traces the biblical story of David and Jonathan teaching that “Odd Fellows…should maintain their feelings and friendship to a brother under the most severe tests.”  David was known for his musical ability, which “had a pleasant effect upon the mind and a soothing effect upon the heart of King Saul.”  In our collection we have another autoharp (at left) that closely resembles several that are illustrated in Odd Fellows regalia catalogs from the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The harp shown on the cover of the 1910 C.E. Ward Company catalog (see photo at right) shows a very similar crescent shape and decoration (called the “chaldean design”) and sold for $6.50.

“Pianoette” Autoharp, 1916-1940, United States, gift of Larry W. Toussaint in memory of Allison Howard Toussaint, 2016.021.

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Self-Playing Harp, 1900-1930, United States, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library Purchase, 2001.084. Photograph by David Bohl.

References:

Rev. T.G. Beharbell, Odd Fellows Monitor and Guide, Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1881.

New to the Collection: Jared Sandford’s Mark Medal

 

Mark Medal, 1809-1817. Probably New York. Museum Purchase, 2016.009.1. Photograph by David Bohl.

From time to time, we have the chance to post about interesting new additions to the collection at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library—today a silver mark medal from the early 1800s.

Previous posts have discussed mark medals, an intriguing form of Masonic material culture.  When taking the mark degree, a new Mark Master Mason selected a symbol that was personally meaningful to be recorded as his unique mark next to his name in the lodge records.  Some men chose an emblem that represented a value important to Freemasonry, such as charity or equality.  Other men recorded symbols with personal meanings, like the initials of their name or attributes representing their profession.  Some Mark Master Masons commissioned engraved silver or medal badges decorated with their personal emblems.  A few lodges, like Holland Mark Lodge in New York City, required that members have these badges made.

An engraver decorated one side of this medal with the owner’s name, Jared Sandford and a depiction of an incomplete arch.  At the top of the medal, the engraver detailed the Masonic symbols of a square and compasses with a sprig of acacia, a ladder and a plumb.  On the other side, the engraver outlined an all-seeing eye near the hanging ring and a cherub’s head at the bottom of the medal.  Between these two elements, the craftsman engraved the mnemonic associated with the Mark Master degree in ornate letters in a circle.  Within the circle, the engraver delineated what appears to be a distinctive tool used by doctors in the early 1800s. 

Doctors and surgeons used this handheld and hand-powered tool, a small circular saw called a trephine, to cut out small circles of bone, often from the skull.  Removing a portion of skull bone could help speed the healing of a head injury by relieving pressure on the brain.  The engraver who portrayed this trephine included distinctive details such as the small spike at the center of the circular blade that helped hold the saw in place.  He also showed the small lever on the side of the tool that controlled the height of the spike.  This control helped keep the spike from injuring the brain as the surgeon cut away bone with the saw. 

Mark Medal, 1809-1817. Probably New York. Museum Purchase, 2016.009.1. Photograph by David Bohl.

A trephine is an unusual tool to be selected as a mark.  Because a trephine is a medical device, it was likely a meaningful object to a Mark Master Mason who had a special understanding its use—a surgeon or doctor. A man named Jared Sandford, who was born in Southampton, New York in 1774 and died in 1817, and was a doctor in the town of Ovid, Seneca County, New York, appears to be a likely candidate to have owned this medal.  Further research will, hopefully, uncover information about Jared Sandford’s Masonic membership.

If you have ideas or suggestions about how to learn more about this medal, be sure to leave them in the comment section below. 

 

Many thanks to Catherine Walter, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library, Grand Lodge of New York for helping identify the trephine.

 

Railroad Brotherhood

The transcontinental railroad was completed one hundred twenty years ago on May 10, 1896, in Promontory, Utah. It connected the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, revolutionizing travel, shipping, and commerce in the United States. Journeys that had taken months by wagon train or weeks by boat now took only days. The laborers who constructed the railway endured long hours of perilous work for little pay. Laborers formed dozens of organizations that also functioned as benevolent fraternities or societies, providing relief, contractual mediation, and representation.

There were a number of "railroad brotherhoods" in the United States by 1900, including the American Railway Union, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and the Order of Railway Conductors. (To learn more about the Order of Railway Conductors visit our previous blog here.) These labor groups often incorporated ritual and regalia into their organizational structure and meetings.  The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library owns and collects badges, charts, and ritual books from these fraternities. This 1890 Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen chart is one example from our collection and outlines the three tenets of the brotherhood: benevolence, sobriety, and industry.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen was founded as a labor organization for railroad employees in Oneonta, New York, in 1883. It was the largest brotherhood of operating railroad employees before merging with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen and the Switchmen’s Union of North America to form the United Transportation Union in 1969.

 To see a detailed image of the chart featured here, and others like it, visit our Flickr page at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalsrmml/sets.

Caption:

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Chart, ca.1890, Enterprise Litho Co., Cleveland, Ohio, Gift of Richard Gutman, 85.69.1.

References:

Paul Michel Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men: Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Masonic Impostors, or, You've Been Warned: "Beware of This Moocher"

The Album of Masonic Impostors was the subject of our very first blog post, back in May 2008. Each May, we revisit the subject of Masonic impostors to celebrate another year of blogging at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library.

This year, we feature the front page of The Bulletin of the Masonic Relief Association of the United States and Canada, No. 630, from November 1946. The entire page focuses on Fred Coopey, a Masonic impostor with at least seventeen aliases listed. As with many Masonic impostors, what little I was able to find about Coopey suggests that he was living a hard knock life early on. The 1920 U.S. Census lists a Fred Coopey, born the same year as the Bulletin's Coopey, as being a 17-year-old inmate at the New Jersey State Home for Boys in Jamesburg.

In just a few words, the Masonic Relief Association's Bulletin paints a picture of a man who has traveled far and wide, using a number of different aliases, and who has imposed on the charity of Freemasons along the way. The inclusion of fingerprints suggests prior criminal behavior on the part of Coopey.  

If you want to learn more about Masonic imposters, including an answer to the question why would someone impersonate a Freemason?, be sure to check out our previous posts on Masonic imposters.

Enjoy a Video Tour of "Keeping Time: Clockmakers and Collectors"

Click here or on the image below to enjoy a tour of the handsome and historic clock exhibition, "Keeping Time: Clockmakers and Collectors," currently on view at the museum through October 29, 2016. Director of Exhibitions, Hilary Anderson Stelling takes you through. The exhibition features more than 50 clocks from the museum’s holdings—a part of the collection long popular with visitors. Each clock on view tells its own story about who used, made, sold or preserved it. The museum staff is very pleased to share these treasures with you.

The Museum & Library regularly produces videos highlighting its exhibitions and collections. You can subscribe on YouTube and be alerted each time there's something new. Enjoy!

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The Mysterious Ladder

Do you recognize this ladder? It’s a prop that Scottish Rite Freemasons used during the early 1900s when conferring the 30th degree. Known as the “mysterious ladder,” the words on one side’s rungs call out the seven liberal arts and sciences: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The rungs on the other side, marked with transliterations of Hebrew, reminded initiates of virtues such as understanding, faith, purity and charity. Writing on the sides of the ladder represents love of God and love of your neighbor. These messages, along with the upward-pointing shape of the ladder reminded the candidate of how he could learn and grow as a Mason.

While this particular ladder dates to the early 1900s, the history of its use in the Scottish Rite degrees goes back to the mid-1700s, when it appeared in the 24th degree. Scholar Alain Bernheim has found evidence that this degree, complete with an illustration of the ladder, originated in France in 1750. The Francken Manuscript in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, which dates to 1783, also includes an illustration of the ladder with the text of the 24th degree, then titled “Grand Elected Knight of Kadosh or Knight of the White and Black Eagle” (you can read more about Henry Andrew Francken, the compiler of the manuscript, here). As the degrees were rewritten and reorganized into the present-day system, the ladder remained in what became the 30th degree.

Ritual books from 1875, 1904 and 1939 include an explanation of the ladder and required the candidates to mount the steps and climb over it before receiving the degree. The 1904 and 1939 books show a scale drawing of the ladder and indicate its placement in a plan of the room or stage. The ritual explained that “it is the only way of entrance to the Order, and we sincerely trust that the lessons taught on its several steps will make a deep and lasting impression on your mind.” Regalia catalogs in the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library collection from the early 1900s (see illustration on right) offer the ladder “of wood, well made and finished, the proper lettering in both English and Hebrew.” Today, the ladder is no longer used in the 30th degree, but it helps to demonstrate the change from intimate degree ceremonies conferred in the lodge room to elaborate staged degrees during the early 1900s.

Mysterious Ladder, 1900-1910, United States, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library purchase, 94.029. Photograph by David Bohl.

Ladder illustration from Catalog No. 270, The Lilley Company, 1900-1920, Columbus, Ohio. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library.