C UNSUNG LODGE LEADERS:
Photographs of Past Masters In the 1820 edition of his monitor, The True Masonic Chart, Jeremy Cross noted that when a Mason was installed as Master of his lodge, his brethren trusted, with “full confidence,” his “skill, and capacity to govern...” The installing officer reminded the new Master of the seriousness of his responsibility with the admonition, “The honour, reputation and usefulness of your lodge, will materially depend on the skill and assiduity with which you manage its concerns; while the happiness of its members will be…promoted in proportion to the zeal and ability with which you propagate the genuine principles of our institution.” For decades before and after Cross described the Master’s role, Freemasons have been rising to the challenge of serving as presiding officer of their lodge. A
As part of the ceremony Cross portrayed, the new Master was “invested with the insignia of his office… and implements of his lodge.” In the 1800s and 1900s, as photography became increasingly accessible and affordable, many lodge Masters marked their assumption of this role with a photograph of themselves wearing and wielding some of the signs and symbols of their office. The photographs shown here, drawn from the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, offer a glimpse of some of the men who
B Lodge Master, 1864-1866, William Edgar Prall, Knoxville, Tennessee. Gift of Jacques Noel Jacobsen, Jr, 2009.021.6.
Lodge Master, ca. 1868, Hewitt & Searles, Amsterdam, New York. Special Acquisitions Fund, 88.42.42.
10
srmml.org
The Northern Light
