Wesleyan Grove and African American Tourism on Martha’s Vineyard

Wesleyan Grove Camp Ground, 1868-1877. C.H. Shute & Son. Edgartown, Massachusetts. Gift of William Caleb Loring 88.38.106.

In this evocative stereographic image in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Martha’s Vineyard tourists sit on the stoops and porches of a row of small cottages. These fanciful nineteenth century cottages–many of which are still standing–were located at Wesleyan Grove campground, part of a Methodist retreat resort that eventually became the town of Oak Bluffs. This image shows an interesting view of Wesleyan Grove, but there is even more to the story of these cottages. Oak Bluffs has a strong history as an African American summer resort, from the 1800s to the present day.

The campground at Wesleyan Grove was established in 1835 in a "venerable grove of oaks.” Early lodgings were tent sites that could be reserved in advance by summer visitors. Starting in the late 1850s, local carpenters built small cottages at the campground whose simple layouts evoked the spartan design of the tents. Later variations of these cottages were decorated with ornate architectural details. By 1880, there were around five hundred of these cottages. Today around three hundred remain.

According to recent research from the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, African Americans started leasing tents and cottage lots beginning in at least 1862, when the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association first began keeping records. Doctor Samuel Birmingham, for example, who identified himself as both African and Native American, leased a tent lot in 1862 and owned a cottage at 3 Forest Circle from 1865 to 1870. This cottage was one of the first fifty cottages built in the campground and is on the same site in 2023.

Another historic Oak Bluffs cottage began life in 1903 as a laundry operated by Henrietta and Charles Shearer. In 1912, the Shearers opened the building as an inn for African American guests. Throughout the twentieth century, Shearer Inn and other lodging establishments like Aunt Georgia's House and Dunmere by the Sea served as gathering places for African American visitors to the island in the summer months.

Martha’s Vineyard cottages have hosted African American politicians like Adam Clayton Powell and Barack Obama, religious leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson, and authors like Dorothy West and Maya Angelou. As Vernon Jordan–a twentieth-century civil rights leader and MV summer resident–once declared, “It was the very essence of the black community gathered for vacation.”

Reference and Further Reading:

• The First Cottagers Of Color in Oak Bluffs
• Martha’s Vineyard African American Heritage Trail
• Oak Bluffs, Shearer Theater, & the Power of Place

Two Images in David Vinton’s "Masonick Minstrel" on a Transferware Pitcher

Over two hundred years ago, in 1816, Freemason David Vinton (1774-1833) compiled The Masonick Minstrel: A Selection of Masonick, Sentimental, and Humorous Duets, Glees, Canons, Rounds and Canzonets. Along with collecting existing songs and music, Vinton included some of his own original lyrics, set to well-known tunes, for his readers. Most of the work’s contents—music, songs, a history of Freemasonry, and a list of lodges in the United States—were drawn from a variety of previously published sources.

The frontispiece of Vinton’s work was directly inspired by that of a similar work, Smollet Holden’s A Selection of Masonic Songs. This book was published in Ireland, almost a decade and half before Vinton’s. A Selection of Masonic Songs featured a frontispiece based on a Dublin jeweler’s advertisement for Masonic wares. An 1814 circular soliciting subscribers for Vinton’s planned publication noted that among its embellishments was “an elegant emblematick frontispiece.” It and the title page were, according to the advertisement, going to be “engraved by the first artists in Philadelphia.”

In addition to the detailed frontispiece, Vinton’s book included other decorative engravings portraying Masonic symbols and themes. One is a depiction (above) of a skull over crossed bones flanked by representations of day (the sun on a light background) and night (the moon and stars on a dark background) and Masonic symbols contained within a diamond-shaped surround, along with Latin phrases related to Freemasonry, and cherubs at top and bottom.

Another image (below, at left), also oval-shaped, features, at its center, a Freemason, holding a rule, and wearing an apron and a jewel. He stands within an arch which is, in turn, surrounded by a structure with columns and a pediment. The pediment is ornamented by a Masonic coat of arms. An oval border contains this structure, the figure, and a selection of symbols used in Freemasonry.

Where did Vinton, an enthusiastic compiler and borrower, find models for these images? It is likely that he took these images from illustrations in a publication, as he did in the case  of his book’s frontispiece. Another intriguing possibility is that he encountered these images on a ceramic object decorated with Masonic-themed transfers. A small pitcher (5 ½” high) in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, provides an example (below at left and right). This object, manufactured in England, is ornamented with three Masonic-themed transfers printed in black on a red body. Vinton’s images are reversed and differ from the images on the pitcher in some small details. Overall the images in Vinton's book and those on the pitcher are enough alike to appear to have a shared inspiration.

This pitcher is one of the many stylish ceramic objects decorated with Masonic imagery created by English potteries in the late 1700s and the early 1800s. These kinds of ceramic objects proved popular with American Freemasons as special gifts to individuals or as presentations to lodges. Though the source Vinton used for these illustrations is not known, the similarity between them and the images on this pitcher underscores the connections between Masonic visual and material cultures in the Anglo-American world in the early 1800s.

 

 

References:

J. Bunny, “Bro. S. Holden’s Masonic Song Book,” The Lodge of Research, No. 2429 Leicester, Transactions for the Year 1947-48, 49-75.

John D. Hamilton, Material Culture of the American Freemasons (Lexington, MA: Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 1994), 207.

Kent Logan Walgren, Freemasonry, Anti-Masonry and Illuminism in the United States, 1734-1850, a Bibliography, vol. 1 (Worcester, MA: America Antiquarian Society, 2003), 284, 295-296.

Photo credits:

Pitcher, ca. 1800. England. Special Acquisitions Fund, 97.025.4. Photographs by Michael Cardinali.

Details from "The Masonick Minstrel…," Compiled by David Vinton, 1816. Published by Herman Mann & Co., Dedham, Massachusetts. Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, GL2004.1687. Photographs by David Bohl.

“Let's be really foolish!”: The German Order of Harugari, a German Mutual Aid Society in Early America

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library recently purchased a collection of fraternal records related to the German Order of Harugari’s Arminia Loge, No. 459. The records, dating from 1882 to 1893, give a brief glimpse into the vibrancy of German culture and brotherhood in Chicago through the lens of August David, the lodge’s Financial Secretary. When twenty-seven-year-old August David immigrated to the United States in 1872, he sought community, advice, and fellowship with other German Americans. The German Order of Harugari, or Deutscher Orden der Harugari, was a German mutual aid society that sought to help German immigrants and to preserve German culture and language.

The German Order of Harugari was, at one time, the largest German fraternal organization in the United States. It was initially founded in 1847 in response to discrimination and attacks fomented by the “Know-Nothings,” a nativist political party that was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant. The founders of Harugari were inspired by early Germanic history and the accompanying paganism and declared that they were “Germans by birth, Americans by choice, Patriots by principle.” This emphasis on paganism and the prohibition against religious discussion during their meetings led to the Catholic Fortnightly Review accusing the organization of being hostile to the Catholic Church in 1905.

The German Order of Harugari drew inspiration from the ancient Germanic tribe of Cherusci who overthrew their Roman overlords led by their general Arminius, also known as Hermann, in 9 B.C.E. The word Harugari comes from the old German word, Haruc, which means “worshippers in a sacred grove.” The German Order of Harugari’s three initiation degrees tell the history of the Cherusci’s triumph over Roman tyranny. An additional degree was added on September 5, 1890, to initiate women into the order. The Hertha Degree was named after an ancient Germanic goddess, Hertha or Nerthus, who accompanied Odin into war. Women and men met separately in local lodges. The German Order of Harugari’s motto was “Friendship, Love, and Humanity” and their emblem was the oak leaf.

The Arminia Loge, No. 459, records contain an account book of assessments and dues, an envelope, dues record sheet, and a party invitation, all dutifully recorded by August David, the Financial Secretary who served from around 1882 to 1893. Although it is unknown when Arminia Loge, No. 459, was formed, the Illinois Staats-Zeuitung, a nationally popular German newspaper published in Chicago, recorded seventy-seven members of the lodge on January 9, 1888. Arminia Loge, No. 459, was one of several lodges in Chicago and was located on 552 Blue Island Avenue in the heart of Chicago.

As seen in the Arminia Loge, No. 459, records, the German Order of Harugari held many social and cultural events to further their mission of preserving German culture and language. This invitation was to a party where the guests are invited to be närrisch (i.e., foolish, crazy, silly) The event was hosted by the Arminia Loge and Harugari male choir. The German Order of Harugari was famous for its choirs and singing festivals. In 1906, Dr. Georg Schuster, archivist at the Royal Prussian Archives, noted that the order had more than fifty choral societies where “the German song finds a place of loving care.” The invitation, like much of the records for the German Order of Harugari, is in German. Below is a transcription and a rough translation of the invitation. Please comment down below if you have a better translation!

Einladung zum

Groβen Massen=Fest nach Narrhalla

veranstaltet von der

Arminia Loge No. 459, D. O. H.

Und

Harugari Männerchor

Da wollen wir mal recht Närrisch sein, recht Närrisch sein, ja ja!

(nämlich in der Vorwärts Turnhalle)

Am Samstag, den 5. März, 1892

Eintritt zum Saal, a hell of a Dollar, (50c)

Zur Gallerie nur a Quarter

Tickets sind bei allen Mitgliedern und Abends an der Kasse zu haben

 

Invitation to the/for

Large crowds=Feast/festival after Narrhalla [German carnival]

organized by the

Arminia Loge No. 459, D. O. H.

and

Harugari male choir

 Let's be really foolish, be really foolish, yes yes!

(namely in the Vorwaerts Turner Hall)

On Saturday March 5th, 1892

Entrance to the hall, a hell of a Dollar, (50c)

To the gallery only a Quarter

Tickets are available from all members and at the box office in the evening

The Arminia Loge, No. 459, records, 1882-1893, hints at a world of German fellowship and vibrant social life in nineteenth-century Chicago. The collection tells a larger and more diverse history of fraternal life in America. The German Order of Harugari continues today under the name of the Harugari German-American Club although the organization has moved away from its ritual and mutual aid society roots into a social and cultural club.

 

Photo captions:

Party invitation, 1892, Arminia Loge, No. 459, records, 1882-1893, Museum Purchase, A2022-230-001.

Account book, 1882-1893, Arminia Loge, No. 459, records, 1882-1893, Museum Purchase, A2022-230-001.

References

Theodore Graebner, The Secret Empire: A Handbook of Lodges, (St. Louis, MO: Concoridia Publishing House, 1927).

Albert C. Stevens, The Cyclopaedia of Fraternities: a compilation of existing authentic information . . . of more than six hundred secret societies in the United States, (New York: E. B. Treat, 1899)

Arthur Preuss, A Dictionary of Secret and Other Societies, (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Company, 1924).

 “The Order of Harugari,” New York Times, August 25, 1895.

Georg Schuster, Die Geheimen Gesellschaften Verbindungen und Orden, (Leipzig: Verlag von Theodor Leibing, 1906).

“Stadt Chicago: Die Harugari,” Illinois Staats-Zeitung, January 9, 1888.