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250 Years of Double-Headed Eagles: 1768-2018 by Jeffrey Croteau, Director of the Van-Gorden Williams Library and Archives and Hilary Anderson Stelling , Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
The double-headed eagle is perhaps the Scottish Rite’s most recognizable symbol. Yet to many, both within the fraternity and without, it is a strange bird indeed. Here, we take a look at how the representation of this bicephalous avian has changed over time.
C By the early 1860s, the eagle was sometimes depicted on documents with its feet close together and its wings outstretched in a relatively stiff manner.
One of the earliest depictions of a double-headed eagle appears on a patent issued by Henry Andrew Francken to Samuel Stringer in 1768, essentially investing him with the powers of a Deputy Inspector General in the Rite of Perfection.
C B Detail of Original Minutes and Letters of Constitution of Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, 1813-1814. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 2014/015/001.
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A Detail of Patent Issued to Samuel Stringer, 1768. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, A2015/142.
A The Stringer double-headed eagle is, like many of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century depictions, relatively skinny and almost dragonlike. This version features many of the elements that characterize doubleheaded eagles in the next quarter millennium: the wings are spread, the talons grasp a sword, and a single crown floats just above the two heads. The first seal of the NMJ’s Supreme Council, from 1813, features a relatively unadorned-looking doubleheaded eagle that appears to be sitting atop a sword rather than grasping it.
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The image, unsurprisingly, appears to be based on that used by the Southern Jurisdiction’s Supreme Council which was founded in 1801. By the 1840s, the NMJ was using a simple two-headed black eagle grasping a sword as part of its seal.
Detail of Supreme Council Decree and Order Regarding Its Authority, 1848. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Gift of the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, A2019/178/0273.
D The sword, and in the case of the 33rd degree, the crown, were often part of the depiction. In many cases, the
D Detail of Circular Warning Against the Hays (Cerneau) Supreme Council in New York City, 1862. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Gift of the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, A2002/108/1.
The Northern Light
