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.

 

New to the Collection: Blood Donor Recognition Pin

Blood Donation Lapel Pin. ca. 1983. Gift of Kamel Oussayef, 2022.049a-b.

New to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library's collection this month is a small gold-colored lapel pin bearing a square and compasses and a “G” in blue enamel. Masonic lapel pins are abundant in both members’ homes and the Museum’s collection. This, however, is the first pin in the collection in the shape of a drop of blood.

Throughout the United States, more than ten state Grand Lodges sponsor a Masonic blood donation program of some kind. The model for many programs involves a coordinator at each local lodge who schedules blood drives on location and encourages brethren to donate. Each unit of blood donated by individual lodge members is counted towards the total for the whole lodge.

Lapel pins are given to individual members who achieve certain blood donation milestones. Some, like this one, are awarded for an initial donation of one unit. Others are given when the Mason reaches a certain volume of blood donated. For example, the Virginia Grand Lodge Blood Program specifies that new donors and donations under two gallons receive the pin type shown here, with a “G” in the center of the Masonic square and compasses. When an individual donates more than two gallons, each subsequent pin bears the number of gallons, increasing by increments of two.

Some Masons donate impressive volumes of blood throughout their lives, such as Scottish Rite Mason Steven Fishman of Georgia, who has donated over thirty-seven gallons since the 1970s. Given that one gallon is equal to eight one-pint donations and that donors can only give once every eight weeks, achieving that volume would take a minimum of forty-five years.

As mentioned above, individual donations by members are counted towards the one lodge’s contribution to the blood program. In Rhode Island, for example, lodges who seek to earn the Grand Master’s Award are advised to participate in local blood drives and ensure at least ten percent of their eligible members give blood.

This new addition to the collection helps us tell the story of how Masons, as the Virginia Blood Program Manual says, “. . . facilitate donations in an organized and craftsman-like fashion . . .”

---

Reference and Further Reading:

• "Steven Fishman donates 37.5 gallons of blood to Shepeard Community Center." Augusta Chronicle, December 8, 2015.
• Grand Lodge of Maine Proceedings, Vol. 37, 1959-60.
• Virginia Masonic Community Blood Program Manual.

A Maine Mason at Sea

In 1852, shipbuilders in Calais, Maine, near the American border with Canada, launched a ship named the Lincoln. The following year, the Lincoln would commemorate American Independence Day many miles from Maine, in the Aegean port of Smyrna, Greece (now İzmir, Turkey). Like the Lincoln, her captain that day left his Maine home to make a living in the maritime world of the nineteenth century.

Bark Lincoln, W.H. Polleys Master Laying at Anchor in Smyrna July 4th 1853. Raffaele Corsini, Smyrna, Greece. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 85.9.

In this watercolor, acquired by the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library in 1985, the Lincoln is shown lying at anchor in the foreground, with the city, its castle, and surrounding hills in the background. The ship bears four flags: from bow to stern, the “Union Jack” or Navy Jack, a blue flag with a Masonic square and compasses, a masthead pennant, and an American flag. The Lincoln’s Union Jack, a blue flag with white stars flown on American ships, appears to have twenty-six stars and her American flag twenty-one stars. Given that the United States had thirty-one states by 1853, perhaps the ship’s owners or captain had not updated her flags or, more likely, the painter took artistic license with these details.

It is believed that ship’s captains sometimes raised a flag bearing a square and compasses to invite Masons in the area aboard their vessel. To local residents and other mariners, this signaled his fraternal affiliation and served as an invitation for conversation, informal meetings, and trade. The Lincoln was in Smyrna in July 1853 to purchase opium, a common ingredient in American patent medicines at the time.

The Lincoln’s captain and 1/16 share owner for her first five years was Woodbury H. Polleys. Polleys was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in 1817 and raised in Portland Lodge No. 1 in 1844. When he took command of the ship, he had been, as he later wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, “at sea as Master of a Ship since June 1848, principally trading between Europe & southern ports . . .”

After the Lincoln, Polleys went on to captain other vessels, including at least three Union ships during the Civil War. These included the USS Katahdin, USS Oleander, and USS Madgie. The latter two ships were part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, preventing Confederate vessels from eluding the Union trade blockade. After the Madgie sank off North Carolina in 1863, Polleys traveled north to Maine for a month’s leave “to procure a new outfit and visit my family.”

In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Polleys used his knowledge of international trade to serve the new United States as Consul to Barbados and Commercial Agent to Cuba. Woodbury H. Polleys died of suicide in 1885 and is buried in Portland’s Pine Grove Cemetery. His headstone bears a Masonic square and compasses, as his ship’s flag did that day in 1853, many miles from Maine.

If you want to dive into this piece of artwork further, you can visit it and many others in our exhibition, “What’s in a Portrait?,” now on view at the Museum & Library. You can also visit the online version of the exhibition.

Further Reading:

• Polleys was Acting Master of the steam boat USS Katahdin in November 1862. He requested a change of station on November 11, 1862. The request was approved – Polleys was in Essex, MA by December 1862, signing his name as “late Acting Master, USS Katahdin."
• Captain Polleys’ report on the loss of the USS Madgie: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, p. 34-35.
• Polleys captained another Maine ship, the bark S.W. Holbrook, in the late 1860s and early 1870s. He traveled from Cuba to Philadelphia with her in 1870.

Research into Socks Reveals the Role of Women Played in the Growth of American Freemasonry

Before researching these items from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, an invitation for the Westbrook Masonic (Maine) Fair and pair of colorful, miniature socks, I thought they were created by Arthur W. Greely, Treasurer of Esoteric Lodge, No. 159, whose name is printed on the outside of the envelope. However, as I continued my research and learned more about the fundraising technique of sock socials, I became convinced that the creator of the invitation and socks was Alice D. Greely, Arthur’s wife.

Masonic Fund Raising Letter and Socks, 1904.   Masonic Fund Raising Poem January 1904. Envelope Addressed to Mrs. B. F. Joy February 25, 1904.

Sock socials were a fundraising technique practiced by many women’s organizations. R. E. Smith, author of The Ladies’ Aid Manual: A Practical Work for Ladies’ Aid Societies writes that women would “meet and plan to make any desired number of miniature socks,” which would be sent along with a printed invitation similar to the invitation presented below.  Sock Social Invitation This little sock we give to you Is not for you to wear; Please multiply your size by two And place inside with care In silver or in cents, Twice the number that you wear (We hope it is immense.) So if you wear a number ten, You owe us twenty, see? Which dropped in the little sock will fill our hearts with glee. So don’t forget the place and date, We’ll answer when you knock, And welcome you with open arms-- But don’t forget your sock. In brief, each person invited to a sock social received a sock, and each sock served as that person’s invitation to the social. The person “had to have the sock to get in at the social,” the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune reported, and in “the sock, he or she would put money."

Considering this information, I believe it is more likely that Alice D. Greely produced the invitation, as well as the two miniature socks. Alice was the wife of a Mason, as was letter's recipient Edna Joy, and both women would have been eligible for Eastern Star membership. That said, my research into both women’s possible Eastern Star ties proved inconclusive. All that we know for certain is that Edna Joy and her husband, Benjamin F. Joy, a prominent local photographer, were invited to the Westbrook Masonic Fair, which was held for the week of February 15, 1904, and run by the lodge, chapter, council and Eastern Star. According to the American Tyler, the proceeds from this Masonic fair were to be used to build a “new Masonic quarters” in Westbrook.

---

Captions

Fund Raising Letter from Mrs. Arthur W. Greely to Mrs. B. F. Fox, February 25, 1904. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 260.004.

References

Beckford, William Hale, and George W. Richardson. Leading Business Men of Bangor, Rockland and Vicinity. Boston: Mercantile Publishing Company, 1888. Accessed: 25 January 2017. https://archive.org/details/leadingbusinessm00beck_0

GenDisasters.com. “Ellsworth, ME Masonic Block Fire, Jan 1907.” Accessed: 25 January 2017. http://www.gendisasters.com/georgia/14194/ellsworth-me-masonic-block-fire-jan-1907

Grand Lodge of Maine. Membership Card Records: Card Listing, 1820-1995. Accessed: 25 January 2017. http://www.mainemason.org/genealogy/index.asp

Grand Lodge of Maine (1907). Twenty-first District. In Proceedings of the Grand Lodge, 1907, (Vol. 21, pp. 278 – 281). Portland, Maine: Stephen Berry.

Grand Lodge of Maine (1909). Annual Address: Consolidation of Lodges. In Proceedings of the Grand Lodge, 1908 - 1909, (Vol. 22, pp. 21). Portland, Maine: Stephen Berry.

“Here and There.” American Tyler 18, 14 (1904): 314-319. Accessed: 25 January 2017. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000056270    

“Here and There.” American Tyler 18, 17 (1904): 410-415. Accessed: 25 January 2017. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000056270

“Masonic Buildings.” American Tyler 20, 12 (1905): 262. Accessed: 25 January 2017. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000056270

Pollard, Ralph J. Freemasonry in Maine, 1762-1945. Portland, Maine: Tucker Printing Company, (no date). Accessed: 25 January 2017. http://www.mainemasonrytoday.com/history/Books/Pollard/index.htm

“Skating Parties, Bobsledding, Dancing Were Popular Then.” Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune, February 2, 1950. Accessed: 31 January 2017. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/17760368/

Smith, R. E. “Fancy Sock Social and Entertainment.” In Ladies’ Aid Manual: A Practical Work for Ladies’ Aid Societies, 48. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1911. Accessed: 25 January 2017.
https://books.google.com/books?id=8i8bAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA48&ots=TXjyr7GfzI&dq=%22sock%20social%22&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q=%22sock%20social%22&f=false