New to the Collection: Apron Made by Harriet Van Rensselaer

Here at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, we are always excited to add a new and interesting Masonic apron to the museum's holdings. This apron, a recent gift to the collection, sheds light on who made Masonic aprons in the early 1800s and the different designs that inspired their work.

One of the compelling aspects of this apron is a multi-part inscription--assumed to have been made by the person who crafted it--inked on the back of the object.  This inscription (at right) reads: "Harriet Van Rensselaer/Maker/Chittenango/June 13 1826."

This intriguing inscription tells us that this apron was the work of a female apron maker. Even though women were excluded from Freemasonry because of their gender, many women worked to support the Masons in their families. Sometimes this work took the shape of creating the aprons that Masons wore to meetings or for special events. In crafting this apron, Harriet delineated Masonic symbols in colored paint on velvet, a popular painting technique in the early 1800s. This apron displayed her skill in the trendy painting style. 

As noted on the apron, Harriet resided in Chittenango, a community in Madison County, New York. The Harriet Van Rensselaer who signed this apron was likely the woman (born Harriet Merritt Morehouse, 1801-1847) married to Philip Sanders Van Rensselaer (1801-1882).  For a few years in the mid-1820s, the couple lived in Chittenango. Later they moved t0 Ohio. Harriet's children were young in the 1820s, she may have made this apron for her husband. What lodge Philip Sanders Van Rensselaer belonged to is not known--research into this object is ongoing--but Masons in and near Chittenango had established a lodge in the area called Sullivan Lodge No. 109 in 1804. If he was an active Freemason during the time he and his wife lived in Chittenango, he might have attended meetings at this lodge.

For inspiration in making this apron, Harriet Van Rensselaer drew on a printed apron designed by Giles Fonda Yates (ca. 1798–1859) (see an example below)​​. The engraving firm Balch, Rowdon and Co. of Albany, New York, cut the plate for Yates' design and, according to a date printed on the apron, produced it in 1821. Van Rensselaer modified Yates’s richly detailed design. She changed the location of some elements and omitted others to suit her composition and the materials she used to make this apron. For example, she moved symbols that represented Masonic constitutions and a lodge charter.  Yates shows these emblems on the black and white pavement at the center of the apron. Harriet placed them on either side of the pavement, the light background of this area of the apron making the symbols more easily visible.

Together these two signed Masonic aprons offer insight into how ideas about how different artists expressed the visual culture of Freemasonry in the 1820s.

Photo credits:

Apron Made by Harriet Van Rensselaer, 1826. Chittenango, New York. Gift of Francis. I. Karwowski, 2024.10.1. Special thanks to Paul Deluca for photographing this apron.

Apron Designed by Giles Fonda Yates, 1821. . Engraved by Balch, Rowdon and Co., Albany, New York. Special Acquisitions Fund, 78.77. Photograph by David Bohl.

 

Recent Acquisition Highlight: Companions of the Forest Membership Certificate

 

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library recently purchased a striking membership certificate issued by Pride of Flushing Circle, No. 437, to Amanda Karlson on June 19, 1901. The Pride of Flushing Circle was a part of the Companions of the Forest, an auxiliary organization to the Foresters of America. Companions of the Forest met in chapters called “circles” and the Foresters of America met in chapters called “courts.” The Foresters of America traces its roots to a British fraternal organization called the Ancient Order of Foresters. The organization drew on imagery of Robin Hood and the Bible, particularly the Garden of Eden. This can be seen in the forest scenes and the garland of red roses and blue flowers, potentially blue bells, on the membership certificate.

The Companions of the Forest was established on June 7, 1883, with the motto “Sociability, Sincerity, and Constancy.” The organization was open to white men and women between the ages of eighteen and fifty who were Foresters or the wives or “lady acquaintances” of the Foresters of America. The Companions of the Forest sought “to improve members morally, socially, and mentally” and provided sick and death benefits. Within the first ten years of the organization’s founding, there were 20,000 members in the United States.

The organization was patriotic. This can be seen in the eagle and American flag imagery in the certificate, as well as in the way that they opened their meetings by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. During initiation, the new members pledged to “honor the flag…and to glorify it.” This patriotic fervor was common in many American fraternal organizations at the time, and reflected the nationalism, assimilationist, and anti-immigrant sentiment that could be found in American society in the early twentieth century. The Companions of the Forest funneled this patriotism into the aim of world peace with the United States leading the way. A prayer included in a 1929 ritual book stated, in part, “as men in their expression enlist for war, so must woman in their natural spirit of protection enlist for peace.”

Although we have not yet discovered much about Amanda Karlson, who received this certificate, there are some traces of the Pride of Flushing Circle, No. 437, found in newspapers. The Pride of Flushing Circle, No. 437, was established in 1898 with a founding membership of twenty-three in Flushing, New York. The Time Union newspaper noted the successful and popular events hosted by the Circle. The paper stated that "the circle lays great stress upon its beneficial features. In the case of sickness of members they receive $5 a week during their illness. A death benefit is also given at the death of either a member of her husband.” The last mention of the organization in the newspaper was a notice for euchre night, a trick taking card game, on February 2, 1910.

These organizations acted as a social outlet and safety net for women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For the Companions of the Forest, this sentiment is emphasized in an 1896 ritual book, which states “our circle represents the home circle, where mutual aid and interest in the welfare of each member hold supreme sway…with the parties and sects of the world we have nothing to do, its disputes and factions we leave behind us. We meet as a family, made so by sociability, sincerity, and constancy.” You can learn more about the Companions of the Forest at the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives.

 

Photo caption

Membership certificate issued by Pride of Flushing Circle, No. 437, to Amanda Karlson, 1901 June 19, Museum purchase, A2024-029-001.

 

References

Constitution and General Laws of the Supreme Circle of the Companions of the Forest (Detroit, MI: John R. Burton, 1883).

Supreme Chief and Supreme Secretary, Companions of the Forest; ritual containing the opening, closing and initiatory ceremonies, also the installation, institution and funeral ceremonies. Together with diagrams of the floor work, (Detroit, MI: A. W. Brookes, Detroit, 1896).

Annie E. Poth, Ritual: Companions of the Forest, (Supreme Circle, 1929).

Flushing Secret Societies: A Fruitful Ground for Fraternal Organizations, Time Union, September 1, 1900