Phoenixmasonry Masonic Museum

Brother George Washington Portrait Plate

This hand-painted portrait plate of our esteemed Brother and first President George Washington is awesome!  It is 10 inches in diameter and trimmed in maroon and gold.  It was made by Tatler & Lawson of Trenton, and numbered 522 - 1.  The china plate is marked Silesia and bears their company logo.  

Brother Washington was born at Bridges Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22, 1732, of the present calendar, but February 11, 1731/2 of the birth record and on December 14, 1799, he died at Mt. Vernon, Fairfax County, Virginia, about 15 miles from Washington, District of Colombia.  At age sixteen he became a surveyor on the estate of Lord Fairfax, then joined the army and later was on the staff of General Braddock.  Delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses.  Unanimously chosen in 1775 as Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial Army and his Yorktown campaign ended the war on October 19, 1781, with the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his British Army.  Washington presided at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia, May, 1787, for the framing of the constitution, and then was elected President, and in 1792 re-elected, refusing a third term.  He returned to his true ambition as a farmer at his Mount Vernon estate.  The Oath of office as President of the United States was administered on April 30, 1789, New York City, to General Washington, by Brother Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of the State of New York, and who was also the Grand Master of Masons in that state.

The name of Washington occupies a prominent place in Masonic biography, not perhaps so much because of any services he has done for the Institution either as a worker or writer, but because the fact of his connection with the Craft is a source of pride to every American Freemason, at least, who can thus call the "Father of his Country" a Brother.  Washington was initiated, in 1752, in the Lodge at Fredicksburg, Virginia, and the records of that Lodge, still in existence, present the following entries on the subject.  The first entry is thus:   "Nov. 4th 1752.  This evening Mr. George Washington was initiated as an Entered Apprentice"; and the receipt of the entrance fee, amounting to £2 3s., was acknowledged.   On March 3rd in the following year, "Mr. George Washington" is recorded as having been passed a Fellow Craft; and on August 4, same year, 1753, the record of the transactions of the evening state that "Mr. George Washington," and others whose names are mentioned, have been raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason.  We next hear of Washington's official connection in the year 1788.  Lodge No. 39, at Alexandria, which had hitherto been working under the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, in 1788 transferred its allegiance to Virginia.  On May 29 in that year the Lodge adopted the following resolution:  "The Lodge proceeded to the appointment of Master and Deputy Master to be recommended to the Grand Lodge of Virginia, when George Washington, Esq., was unanimously chosen Master;  Robert McCrea, Deputy Master;  Wm. Hunter, Jr., Senior Warden; John Allison, Junior Warden. And the Charter or Warrant under which the Lodge is still working is granted to Washington as Master.

Last year "The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union" who are the principal caretakers and current owners of George Washington's Mt. Vernon estate celebrated the 200th Anniversary of his death and maintain a website at: www.mountvernon.org  for your further reading and enjoyment.

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