Scottish Rite Jewel Worn by Marquis Fayette King

Jewel Worn by Marquis Fayette King, 1885. Edward Williams (1820-1890), New York, New York. Gift of Council of Deliberation of Maine, 2018.032.2a-b.

In 1870 a committee of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction happily announced that “the condition of the Treasury will warrant an appropriation for a suitable distinctive badge for each Active Member of the Council….” The group went on to “earnestly recommend that a committee of three be appointed to prepare a design….”  This new committee was further charged “to procure and deliver a jewel to each Active Member of the Supreme Council….” Expenses noted in the proceedings show that in July of 1870 the Supreme Council paid the firm Edward Williams & Co. to produce fifty-three jewels for Active Members, along with ten “triangles for officers.” The following year, the Supreme Council commissioned the same company to manufacture two more jewels for Active Members, “13 triangles for Deputies,” and six jewels for foreign representatives.

From 1870 through 1890, Edward Williams & Co., a New York City firm founded by silversmith and diamond cutter Edward Williams (1820-1890), crafted jewels for the Supreme Council. Williams’ company also provided jewels to other Masonic organizations. In 1881 one newspaper described Williams as a “distinguished artist in precious metals” who had created “a magnificent jewel” in gold and platinum, decorated with enamel and diamonds, for the Past Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of the United States.  When Williams died in 1890, notices of his death included the information that he had “manufactured Masonic and Odd Fellows’ badges” and he was “was well known as a Mason.”

Edward Williams & Co. made this jewel, now in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, for Marquis Fayette King (1835-1904). On December 30, 1885, Williams received $143.87 from the Supreme Council, in payment for his bill “for making and engraving 2 jewels for Active Members.”  These jewels were intended for the two new Active Members the Supreme Council had named to serve on the Scottish Rite’s governing body in 1885. One was Marquis Fayette King from Portland, Maine.

King was born in 1835, a few months after the death of his heroic namesake, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette. King became a Mason in his hometown, joining Ancient Land Mark Lodge in Portland as a young man in 1859. He became a member of the Scottish Rite in 1863 and received the 33^rd Degree in 1865. After being appointed to the Supreme Council as an Active Member in 1885, King served as a Deputy, a member representative for his home state of Maine. He wore this gold and enamel badge, the jewel associated with his role as an Active Member of the Supreme Council and Deputy for Maine, for almost 20 years.

Learn more about King’s jewel and the holdings of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library in “Looking Back, Moving Forward: Fifty Years of Collecting.”

References:

Nathan Gold, Marquis Fayette King (Boston, MA: David Clapp & Son), 1905, 5.

Proceedings of the Supreme Council..Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite for the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction... (New York, NY: Masonic Furnishing Company) 1870, 1871, and 1886.

 

A United Order True Sisters Anniversary Medal

United Order True Sisters Medal, ca. 1946. Gift of Clara W. Gnerre on behalf of Noemi No. 11. 91.032.1

The face of this round medal bears an embossed wreath which curves around the black enamel letters U, O, T, and S. These initials represent Unabhängiger Orden Treue Schwestern or United Order True Sisters, a German Jewish fraternal group which was the first independent national women’s organization in the United States. The group – sometimes known as the United Order of True Sisters - was founded in New York City in 1846 and became known for their charitable fundraising for cancer patients and children’s hospitals after World War II. The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library cares for a small collection of UOTS items, including this medal, which is connected to a fascinating Massachusetts woman.

The items in this collection were donated by Clara Cecile Wagner Gnerre (1920 - 2005) on behalf of her UOTS chapter, Noemi No. 11. This chapter was founded in 1878 in Boston, Massachusetts – the eleventh UOTS lodge in the country - and like its sister chapters in other states, sought to provide Jewish women with a sense of identity, purpose, and community. Due to anti-German sentiment during World Wars I and II and American antisemitism throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, women who joined UOTS may not have felt welcome in other fraternal orders. As past museum Assistant Director Barbara Franco has written of Jewish fraternal orders, “The rites, regalia, and mottoes of these organizations, based on Freemasonry and Odd Fellowship, offered an American aura that might be denied Jews elsewhere.”

United Order True Sisters Medal, ca. 1946. Gift of Clara W. Gnerre on behalf of Noemi No. 11. 91.032.1.

The reverse of the medal reads “PRESENTED AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 1846-1946”. To commemorate their one-hundredth anniversary, UOTS chapters produced souvenir medals like these, as well as centennial calendars and other ephemera. A February 1946 article from the Daily Argus (Westchester, New York) shows the kind of activities UOTS chapters were involved in that year. Activities included mahjong games, luncheons, educational lectures, and Red Cross sewing drives. The United States Treasury Department awarded a citation to Westchester No. 34 for raising nearly a quarter of a million dollars in war loan drives. After the war, in 1947, the UOTS formed a National Cancer Service initiative. This program funneled members’ fundraising skills and largesse towards medical charities.

Clara Wagner – later Clara Gnerre - was a member of Noemi No. 11 for forty years. She graduated from Girl’s Latin School in 1937 and attended Radcliffe College, where she graduated cum laude with a degree in chemistry in 1941. If she was a member of Noemi in 1946, she may have received this souvenir UOTS medal when it was first issued, when she was 26 years old.

She worked first for Carbon Black Co. as a rubber chemist and was employed there in 1950 when she married her husband C. Gerald “Jerry” Gnerre. A January 1954 Boston Globe article described her as a “research chemist and rubber technologist” at Godfrey L. Cabot, Inc. Research Laboratories on Cambridge’s “Research Row.” Gnerre was, at the time, one of few women working in industrial materials research and development, a growing field post-World War II in Cambridge.

In the 1980s, Gnerre became more active in Noemi No. 11, serving as its Recording Secretary in 1986 and President from 1987 to 1988. At this time, the chapter focused on fundraising for cancer services and children’s care at Boston’s Children’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals. At Noemi’s 110th Annual Luncheon, Gnerre was praised for her “warmth, encouragement, and good humor.”

After 111 years as a United Order True Sisters chapter, Noemi No. 11 dissolved in 1989. Perhaps inspired by a 1983 chapter visit to the then-eight-year-old Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Gnerre first donated a collection of material from the chapter to the museum in 1991. This medal was the first item that she donated. Over the next five years, Gnerre and other women from Noemi No. 11 donated UOTS material to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, as well as to other historic repositories (see link below).

Clara Cecile Wagner Gnerre died in August 2005. Her Boston Globe obituary reads: “In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The United Order of True Sisters, Inc. . . . where she was a member for 40 years and past President of a local chapter (Noemi Chapter 11) or to a cancer organization of your choice.” Gnerre ably represented the United Order True Sisters and their philanthropic goals to the last.

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Further Reading:

• United Order True Sisters Noemi #1 Records at Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center, New England Historic Genealogical Society

More than Meets the Eye: Masonic Ball Watch Fob

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library recently added a silver Masonic ball fob to the collection. These types of fobs, also referred to as golden globe and cross fobs, are actually comprised of six small pyramids that form a small ball. The ball fob makes the shape of a cross when open. Twenty-four different Masonic symbols including the square and compasses, skull and crossbones, sprig of acacia, and six-pointed star (or seal of Solomon), are engraved on the pyramid faces.

Decorative watch fobs were extremely popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s and customarily worn with the watch chains attached to pocket watches. They ranged in size from 11/64" to 1" in diameter. There are four types of Masonic ball watch fobs: German, Old English, New English, and Scottish. All four types are similar in shape and size but differ in how the ball opens and how the clasps attach to the ball.

The fob seen here is an example of an Old English ball which has four "claw-like" clasps on the sides with a small pin on the inside of each clasp.  Do you own another example of a ball watch fob? Let us know with a comment below or email Ymelda Rivera Laxton, Assistant Curator, at ylaxton[@]srmml.org.

 

 

Captions: 

Masonic ball watch fob, late 1800s, unidentified maker, probably England, Gift of the Supreme Council, 33º, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA, 2015.019. Photographs by David Bohl.

References:C. Clark Julius, Masonic timepieces, rings, balls & watch fobs, Pennsylvania: The Printing Express Inc., 1983.