1. William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1772; reprint ed., London: G. and T. Wilkie, 1778), p. 50. Formally incorporated into Freemasonry in the 1730s, the third-degree ritual is described in Bernard Fay, Revolution and Freemasonry 1680–1800 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935), pp. 198–201; and Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989), pp. 128–30. Ms. Minutes of the Williamsburg Lodge of Masons, 1773–1779 (hereinafter cited as MWLM), bound and photocopied by the Library of Congress, 1939, p. 22, Special Collections, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library.
2. Occupational information provided by historian Harold B. Gill, Jr. At their raising, McCarty and Lockley were “Tylers” in the lodge, a position often held by men of lesser stature, for it included duties such as keeping “the Lodge and its furnishings clean and in good order” (MWLM, p. 90). As quoted in George Kidd, Early Freemasonry in Williamsburg, Virginia (Richmond, Va.: Dietz Press, 1957), p. 35. In the May 18, 1776, issue of the Virginia Gazette, Battwell made this request: “all persons who have demands against me are desired to bring their accounts to Edmund Randolph, Esq., properly attested.” Battwell remained in Williamsburg, however, and received charity from the lodge again in May 1779 (Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, p. 46). Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, p. 53.
3. Accounts with Robert Carter, 1769, 1770, 1771, Ms C2468a, Carter Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; Ann Blair to Mary Braxton, September 4, 1769, Blair Papers, Special Collections, Swem Library, College of William and Mary; Lord Botetourt’s Account Book, November 1, 1769 (copy at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
4. Sermon at the Williamsburg Lodge’s Feast of St. John the Evangelist, December 28, 1778, in Ms. Proceedings of the Williamsburg Lodge of Masons, 1774–1779 (hereinafter cited as MPWLM), photocopied and bound by the Library of Congress, 1916, p. 103, copy on file in Special Collections, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library.
5. On December 30, 1773, the Virginia Gazette reported:
Last Monday being the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, the ancient and honourable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, all habited alike, and in the proper insignia of their Order, went in Procession from their Lodge in this City to Bruton Church, where an excellent Discourse, delivered by the Reverend Mr. Andrews, a brother Mason, was preached. . . . After divine Service, they returned to their Lodge, and dined together; after which they gave a Ball and elegant Entertainment to a Number of Ladies, and spent the Evening with that Harmony, Decorum, and friendly Intercourse, which characterize the Brotherhood, and are so agreeable to the Laws of Masonry.
Reverend Andrews was a professor of moral philosophy, and later of mathematics, at the College of William and Mary. Other attendees included the clerk of the Governor’s Council, two additional clerics, a cabinetmaker, a wigmaker, a ferry owner, a physician, the former mayor, a merchant, a musician, a tavern keeper, two silversmiths, and several members of the landed gentry. The attendees are listed in MWLM, p. 14; the biographical information came from historian Harold B. Gill and from Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, pp. 87–131.
6. The term “operative” is commonly used by Masonic writers and historians to distinguish working stonemasons from “speculative,” or symbolic, Freemasons. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, p. 303. Freemason’s Hall in London was dedicated on May 23, 1776.
7. The July 6, 1778, Minutes of Unanimity Lodge No. 7 record: “Justices gave leave that the Lodge might be held in the Courthouse . . . it was accordingly moved, when Br Russel presented the Lodge with an Elegant Master’s Chair for which he received thr Sincere Thanks” (as quoted in Bradford L. Rauschenberg, “Two Outstanding Virginia Chairs,” Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 2, no. 2 [November 1976]: 11–20). Rauschenberg discusses variations of the story as found in the files of Unanimity Lodge, nineteenth-century North Carolina newspaper accounts, and the oral tradition of the lodge.
8. The “Lord Baltimore” legend is mentioned in Thomas C. Parramore, Launching the Craft: The First Half Century of Freemasonry in North Carolina (Raleigh: Litho Industries, Inc., 1975), p. 72. Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, was revered by Virginians for his commissions in support of the College of William and Mary and the House of Burgesses. Though Lord Botetourt’s Masonic connections are undocumented, his close nephew and executor of his estate, Henry Somerset, the fifth Duke of Beaufort, was grand master of the Grand Lodge of England from 1767 to 1772 (see Colonial Williamsburg DOC file for 1990-74: portrait of Henry Somerset, fifth Duke of Beaufort). The Grand Lodge of England granted charters to Williamsburg Lodge and the newly named Botetourt Lodge in Gloucester, Virginia, in November 1773 (William Moseley Brown, Freemasonry in Virginia [Richmond: Masonic Home Press, 1936], pp. 22, 30). Rauschenberg, “Two Outstanding Virginia Chairs,” p. 11.
9. Chippendale’s Director is listed in Edmund Dickinson’s 1778 estate inventory. Dickinson was a former partner of Bucktrout and a Mason. Bucktrout was one of the appraisers of Dickinson’s estate. See Wallace Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg and Eastern Virginia, 1710–1790 (Richmond: Virginia Museum, 1979), pp. 182–83.
10. Throughout Masonic literature, the compass is referred to in its plural form. The square is the jewel, or insignia, of the grand master; the level is the jewel of the senior warden; and the plumb rule is the jewel of the junior warden. They are traditionally worn on ribbons around the neck during lodge meetings, processions, and other events, hence the term “jewel.”
11. David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 167, 219. Randle Holme, The Academy of Armory, 3 vols. (1688; reprint ed., Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1972), p. 393.
12. From Vitruvius, De Architectura (1st century, B.C.) as quoted in David Stevenson, Origins of Freemasonry, p. 106.
13. Hans Christian von Baeyer, Taming the Atom: The
Emergence of the Visible Microworld (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 11; Stevenson, Origins of Freemasonry, pp. 79–80.
14. Albert C. Mackey, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (New York: Masonic History Co., 1921), pp. 167–68.
15. Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 234.
16. James Anderson, Charges and Constitutions of Masonry (1723; revised ed., Boston: Isaiah Thomas, 1767), p. 3.
17. Cornelius Moore, The Ancient Charges and Regulations of Freemasonry, with Notes Critical and Explanatory (Cincinnati, Ohio: Masonic Review Office, 1855), p. 119. Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 71.
18. Moore, Ancient Charges, p. 126.
19. Bland’s sermon, given on December 25, 1775, is in MPWLM, pp. 38, 39. From Greene’s “Entertainment for a Winter’s Evening” (1750), as quoted in David S. Shields, “Clio Mocks the Masons: Joseph Greene’s Anti-Masonic Satires,” in Deism, Freemasonry, and the Enlightenment, edited by J. A. Leo Lemay (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987), pp. 102–26.
20. For more on these Virginia Masonic chairs, see Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg, pp. 71–73, 75–79, 92–96. For a thorough discussion of Jachin and Boaz and their various permutations, see James Stevens Curl, The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1990), pp. 28–32.
21. Acetone removed the more recent layer of varnish, and an ethanol and water solution dissolved old glue residue. We adhered replacements to flat losses with hot hide glue. We attached the replacements for the jagged losses with gap-filling, carvable epoxy (Ciba-Geigy Araldite 1253) after applying a barrier of hide glue to the original surfaces (furniture conservators at Winterthur Museum pioneered this now widely accepted, reversible treatment). Once firmly attached, new leaves and volutes were carved, using gouges and chisels matching the original tool marks, then matched to adjacent original surfaces using acrylic emulsion paints, clear acrylic coatings, dry pigments, and paste wax. Where possible, new components received a stamped date of completion.
22. William Hutchinson, The Spirit of Masonry (1775; reprint ed., Carlisle, Eng.: F. Jollie, 1802), p. 335. The Masonic metaphor of man entering life as rough ashlar is analogous to the theories of human development put forth by John Locke. Early Masonic writers claimed Locke was a Freemason. William Preston published a letter purportedly by Locke in which the philosopher expressed his desire to join the Craft (Illustrations of Masonry, p. 105). Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), p. 65. The arch may also allude to Royal Arch Masonry.
23. Numerical allusions abound in Masonic texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For a revealing parody of Masonic numerology, see Dr. Alexander Hamilton, The History of the Ancient and Honourable Tuesday Club, 4 vols., edited by Robert Micklus (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 2:271–72.
24. MPWLM, p. 38.
25. As quoted in Catharine L. Albanese, Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976), p. 133.
26. MPWLM, p. 39.
27. As quoted in Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg, p. 66.
28. Ibid., pp. 66, 67. Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, p. 135.
29. We imbedded the sample in polyester resin, ground and polished it perpendicular to the plane of the paint layers to produce a cross-section of the paint and gilding strata, and examined it with a microscope fitted with visible and UV-fluorescence light sources to achieve clear distinction of the layers. By applying three direct-reactive dyes, we were able to characterize the binders in each layer. (Magnification, 100–200¥; visible light source, 50w halogen lamp; near-ultraviolet light source, 100w mercury vapor lamp with a violet cube [excitation range: 350–470nm]; direct-reactive stains Rhodamine B [reacts with lipids such as linseed oil, fluorescing red-orange], TTC [reacts with carbohydrates such as starches and gums], FITC [reacts with proteins such as casein, hide glue, and egg binders].) The size layer appeared amber in white light but fluoresced orange-red under ultraviolet light when stained with Rhodamine B. The oil-gilded surface continued around the break in the gesso, indicating that it was applied after the loss. The latest surfaces consisted of two or three coats of a resinous bronze paint. The bronze pigment particles appeared as dark flakes within the resin binder. Microscopy suggested that the oil-gilded layer remained intact across the marred face of the sun. The upper layers of bronze paint were soluble in a variety of polar solvents, but we found an acetone gel best suited to remove the bulk of the material (developed by paintings conservator Richard Wolbers: 150ml acetone, 20ml deionized water, 8ml Ethomeen C25, and 1.3g Carbopol 625). Diacetone alcohol removed the remaining residue just above the oil gilding. Last, we applied an acrylic coating to consolidate the surface and enhance the brilliance of the gold.
30. The acrylic resin is easily removable; the first two layers are 20 percent Acryloid B72 in toluene (smoothed with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper), and the second two layers are 20 toluene (smoothed with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper), and the second two layers are 20 percent Acryloid B67 in a 90/10 solution of Stoddard Solvent and xylene (smoothed with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper). A mist of Stoddard Solvent made the B67 suitably tacky for gilding.
31. To test for lead, the dispersed pigment was dissolved in nitric acid, then treated with potassium iodide, which reacted with the lead to form lead iodide.
32. Subsequent testing indicated that both the bronze overpaint and the overvarnish were soluble in acetone, but the original oil-gilded surface of the scroll was not. Unfortunately, the thinly applied lettering was partially bound up in the overvarnish, and it had a similar solubility. Since no solvent or cleaning system could successfully separate the lettering from the overvarnish, the treatment required a combination of techniques. After removing the two thick layers of bronze overpaint with an acetone gel, we applied diacetone alcohol to the darkened varnish to make it swell and soften. This method allowed us to remove most of the varnish mechanically using a micro-chisel and a stereomicroscope at 15–25¥ magnification. Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774, Hunter Dickinson Farish, ed., (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978), pp. 69–70. Although born in Virginia, Joseph Lane was a friend of Fithian’s from Princeton. The motto “Virtue and Silence” appeared on the 1760 seal of England’s Antients Grand Lodge (Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge 82, no. 2076 [1969]: 240), a rival to the premier Grand Lodge of England that chartered Williamsburg’s lodge and several others in Virginia. In the third quarter of the eighteenth century, “Antient” Freemasonry, loosely tied to the Scottish and Irish Grand Lodges, introduced more elaborate symbolism and higher degrees, such as the Royal Arch degree. Although the presence of “Virtute et Silentio” on the chair suggests that it was made for a lodge practicing “Antient” Freemasonry, dissension between “Antient” and “Modern” Masons did not affect the Craft in Virginia as it did in the northern colonies. Regular intervisitation may have disseminated the symbols and mottos of both branches throughout the Virginia lodges. For a socioeconomic explanation of the rift, see Steven C. Bullock, “The Ancient and Honorable Society: Freemasonry in America, 1730–1830” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1986).
33. As quoted in Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, pp. 47–49. Virtue was “the grand object in view, luminous as the meridian Sun, shines refulgent on the mind, enlivens the heart, and converts cool approbation into warm sympathy and cordial attention” (Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, p. 9). Farish, ed., Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, pp. 72–73. Benjamin Franklin, “Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion,” in Fay, Revolution and Freemasonry, pp. 160–62. Franklin’s simple expression exemplified the optimism of eighteenth-century Freemasonry, which tended to minimize, ignore, or reject the negative aspects of orthodox Christianity—concepts of evil, original sin, and the depravity of man. Franklin’s creator was anything but judgmental: “he has created many Things, which seem purely design’d for the Delight of Man, I believe he is not offended, when he sees his Children solace themselves in any manner of pleasant exercises and Innocent Delights.” The “Articles” were found in Franklin’s pocket when he died.
34. As quoted in Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, p.
48. For a discussion of the eighteenth-century American concept of virtue, see Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 218.
35. From a sermon by Isaac Head, Cornwall, England, April 21, 1752, as quoted in Margaret Jacob, Living the Enlightenment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 61. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, pp. 21, 8. African-American Freemasonry, known as Prince Hall Masonry, dates from the American Revolution, when a group of free blacks were initiated by members of a British military lodge. It was not officially recognized by other American Masonic organizations. British and American Freemasonry remained male organizations throughout the eighteenth century. Only French Freemasons admitted women.
36. Albanese, Sons of the Fathers, p. 132. Albanese’s date seems reasonable, based on the appearance of the three great lights on Masonic art, engravings, and furniture beginning about 1760.
37. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, p. 9.
38. Hutchinson, Spirit of Masonry, p. 333. Hutchinson’s orthodox Christian interpretation of Masonic symbols presaged more pronounced Christian influences in Freemasonry after 1800.
39. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, p. 76.
40. The resin was 20 percent Acryloid B67 in Stoddard Solvent. This acrylic coating had no solvent effect on the lettering or the white paint, and it is easily removable.
41. John Bivins, Jr., The Furniture of Coastal North Carolina, 1700–1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 239–42.
42. In the old English system, which was probably used in Virginia in the eighteenth century, the points are: hand to hand, foot to foot, knee to knee, breast to breast, and hand over back. During the mid-nineteenth century, American Freemasonry substituted mouth to ear for hand to hand. Oliver Day Street, Symbolism of the Three Degrees (New York: George H. Doran, 1963), p. 77; and Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, p. 787.
43. To gild the star, we applied a thin layer of hide glue, followed by a few coats of thin gesso (sanded until smooth), a coat of red bole, and 23K gold leaf. Straight pins attached the star to the Bible (secured in old nail holes that we filled with white pine). Spots of Acryloid B72 reinforced the pins and secured the two lower points of the star. Original nails were reused to attach the square and compass.
44. Parramore, Launching the Craft, p. 24. Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, p. 125. MPWLM, December 17, 1775, p. 37.
45. MPWLM, p. 12. Before July 5, 1774, Randolph was listed as “G. M.” (grand master), which suggests that he held a special status among Virginia Masons.
46. In America, the “working tools” of the entered apprentice are the 24" gauge and the gavel. In England they are the gauge, gavel (or mallet), and chisel. In both countries, the working tools of the fellowcraft degree are the level, plumb rule, and square. For other contemporary interpretations of these tools, see W. Kirk MacNulty, Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991), pp. 20–31; and Albert Mackey, Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, 2 vols. (Chicago: Masonic History Co., 1946), 2:1056.
47. Mackey, Revised Encyclopedia, 2:947; MacNulty, Freemasonry, p. 49.
48. The only line-laying tools shown in Randle Holme’s Academy of Armory (1688), Joseph Moxon’s Mechanical Exercises (1688), and Diderot’s Encyclopedia (1762) are simple iron pins. The Oxford English Dictionary lists “skirret” as a tool but ascribes both the origin of the tool and its use to nineteenth-century British Freemasonry. See the discussion of the “chalk line and reel” in R. A. Salaman, Dictionary of Woodworking Tools (1975; revised ed., Newtown, Conn.: Taunton Press, 1990), pp. 128–29.
49. See Mackey, Revised Encyclopedia, 2:784. Hutchinson, Spirit of Masonry, pp. 335–36. The “line” or “plumb” must also be distinguished from the vertical line tool most often referred to in Masonry—the “plumb line” or “plumb rule.” According to Hutchinson, the plumb line “admonishes us to walk erect and upright . . . not to lean to a side, but to hold the scale of justice in equal poise; to observe the just medium between temperance and voluptuousness.” As quoted in Graeme Love, Research Report on the “Skirret,” Lodge of Research no. 218, Library Files, Shrine Temple, Washington, D.C.
50. Hutchinson, Spirit of Masonry, p. 336. Similarly, Hutchinson ascribed attributes of the heavy setting maul and chisel-edged gavel to his symbolic “hammer.” Love’s “Report on the ‘Skirret’” traces the name to the early nineteenth-century Freemasons and attributes the name to the sound made as the line is pulled from the reel.
51. Mackey, Revised Encyclopedia, 2:1031.
52. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, p. 114.
53. E. T. Joy, “Some Unrecorded Masonic Ceremonial Chairs of the Georgian Period,” from Transactions of the Quaturo Coronati Lodge, vol. 80, reprinted in Connoisseur 159, no. 641 (July 1965): 163.
54. References to Royal Arch Masonry appear early in Virginia lodges. Masonic historians credit the Fredericksburg Lodge with the first Royal Arch degree ever recorded (1753). Cabin Point Royal Arch Lodge met just across the James River from Williamsburg as early as 1771. See Brown, Freemasonry in Virginia, pp. 22, 30. MPWLM, p. 15.
55. Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1970), p. 262. Randolph’s “History,” written between 1809 and 1812, remained in manuscript form until the late nineteenth century. Virginia lodges were the first in the colonies to break ties with British Freemasonry. An independent Grand Lodge was first proposed in Williamsburg on December 3, 1776 (see transcribed MWLM in Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, p. 37), and formally established by 1778 (see Brown, Freemasonry in Virginia, pp. 49–64).
56. Mrs. Peachy Wills to Mrs. Ann Coulter, April 30–May 31, 1796, Tucker-Coleman Papers, Special Collections, Swem Library, College of William and Mary. In April 1776, John Page described Bucktrout’s “elegant Machine” and the refusal of the Committee of Safety to grant Bucktrout “30 or 40 Pounds as a Reward for his Public Spirit and Ingenuity and to enable him to go on with his Plan” (John Page to Thomas Jefferson, April 26, 1776, in Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 [Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1950], pp. 288–89). Bucktrout probably left Williamsburg in late 1779 but returned in 1781, when his name appears on a list of suspected former members of the British army. J. Prentis to Governor Nelson, November 24, 1781, Calendar of State Papers, vol. 2, p. 260; Williamsburg Council Journals, vol. 2, p. 219; Williamsburg Land Tax Records. “At a meeting of the Lodge, June 12, 1812: Resolved that Benjamin Bucktrout be invited to dine with us on June 24 [St. John’s Day]” (transcription from MWLM as quoted in Kidd, Freemasonry in Williamsburg, p. 62).
57. “Admitted into the mysteries” was the phrase used to signify the initiation of an entered apprentice (MPWLM, p. 98). Individuals involved in the treatment of the Bucktrout chair included Ronald Hurst, curator; Carey Howlett, project director, analysis, cleaning of gilded and painted elements, inpainting; Albert Skutans, structural treatments, fabrication of star, and resilvering of moon; Wallace Gusler, replacement of carving losses; Leroy Graves, upholstery conservation; Jon Prown, cleaning of gilded and painted surfaces, fabrication and gilding of new rule hinge, inpainting; Julie Reilly, solvent tests, leather seat consolidation and repairs; Steve Ray, solvent tests; Martha Edwards, removal of bronze overpaint on cushion “cord”; Angela Kotakis, mechanical cleaning of brass nails. Assistance in analysis was provided by Melanie Feather of the Smithsonian Institution’s Conservation Analytical Laboratory (X-radiography, X-ray fluorescence, and scanning electron microscopy); Gregory Landrey of Winterthur Museum (fluorescence microscopy); and Robert Berry of NASA-Langley (X-radiography). |