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.