In the lobby of the Denver Masonic building at 16th and Welton, behind glass, is a hand-painted silk apron. It is not a reproduction. It belonged to the Marquis de Lafayette. He carried it through decades of Masonic work on two continents, gave it away in Troy, New York in 1824, and it made its way to Denver over the century that followed. For most of the time it was here, nobody knew it.
This is the story of how it got here, how it was lost, and how it was found.
A Note on the Aprons
There are several Lafayette aprons in American Masonic collections, and it is worth being precise about which one this is. The most famous is the white satin apron embroidered by Madame Lafayette and presented to George Washington in 1784. That apron is held by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. A separate leather apron with a transfer-printed Masonic scene attributed to Lafayette is in the Livingston Masonic Library at the Grand Lodge of New York.
The apron on display in Denver is neither of these. It is the hand-painted silk apron Lafayette presented personally to the Master of Apollo King Solomon's Lodge No. 13 in Troy, New York, during his 1824 farewell tour of the United States. Its chain of custody from that evening in Troy to this building in Denver is documented and authenticated.
The 1824 Tour and a Nation’s Gratitude
In the summer of 1824, at the invitation of President James Monroe, the sixty-seven-year-old Lafayette returned to the United States for the country’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. He had not been to America since 1784. He arrived at Staten Island on August 15 to a crowd estimated at fifty thousand people. Over the thirteen months that followed, he traveled all twenty-four states, covered roughly six thousand miles, and was received in every city with parades, cannon fire, and the kind of public emotion that had not been seen since the Revolution itself.
The Masonic fraternity was as eager as anyone to welcome him. Grand lodges across the country organized receptions. Local bodies invited him to their communications. Lafayette accepted when his schedule permitted, attended meetings, offered toasts at festive boards, and when he could not attend in person, received delegations of Masons at his quarters. Historians have documented more Masonic contacts during those thirteen months than any other figure in American history. More than seventy-five Masonic bodies named themselves in his honor during and after the tour.
Troy, New York, and the Gift to Apollo Lodge (1824)
During his travels through New York state, Lafayette visited Apollo King Solomon’s Lodge No. 13 in Troy. The lodge had been chartered by the Grand Lodge of New York in 1796 and still meets in Troy today.
At the close of the meeting, Lafayette presented his personal hand-painted silk apron to the lodge’s Master, Worshipful Brother Adna Treat. He had used that apron in Masonic lodge work for decades. He gave it without fanfare, as a Mason giving something of his to Brethren he would not see again. No account records what he said. The gesture was understood.
In the years that followed, the Brethren of Apollo Lodge came to believe the apron had been lost permanently.
The Long Road to Denver: 1824 to 1928
The apron had not been lost. It had been passed along.
Worshipful Brother Adna Treat eventually gave the apron to his son. His son gave it to his brother. That brother, some years later, presented it to his nephew: Worshipful Brother Nathan O. Vosburgh, who at the time served as Treasurer of Albert Pike Lodge No. 117 in Denver, Colorado.
On September 27, 1928, WB Vosburgh formally presented the Lafayette apron to Albert Pike Lodge No. 117 at a stated communication. The lodge received it and placed it in a picture frame for display. At some point thereafter, the framed apron was moved to a storage closet, where it remained for the better part of eighty years.
It is worth noting that the apron survived the catastrophic 1984 fire that destroyed the interior of the Denver Masonic building. It survived because Albert Pike Lodge had been meeting at the Lakewood Lodge building for several years before the fire, and the apron was there rather than at 16th and Welton when the building burned.
Discovered: Denver, Around 2008
Around 2008, the Secretary Emeritus of the lodge, Worshipful Brother Christopher Scott, was cleaning out a storage closet in the Denver Masonic building when he found the framed apron tucked behind other items. He did not know immediately what he was looking at.
WB Christopher began researching. He traced the documentation available within the lodge records. Then he placed a call to the current Secretary of Apollo King Solomon’s Lodge No. 13 in Troy, New York, to ask about their records of the 1824 gift. The Secretary, by WB Christopher’s account, was disbelieving. The Troy lodge had long assumed the apron was lost.
WB Christopher then contacted the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. The memorial’s Director of Collections, Worshipful Brother Mark A. Tabbert, agreed to examine the apron. Tabbert is the author of American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities and one of the foremost scholars of American Masonic material culture. He authenticated the apron as the artifact given by Lafayette to WB Treat in Troy in 1824.
On Display: From Alexandria Back to Denver
Following authentication, the apron was displayed at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria for several years, where it was seen by Masons and visitors from across the country. It was then returned to Denver, where it remains today on permanent display in the Masonic building at 1614 Welton Street.
It is always on display for members and visitors. If you come to a stated communication, you will see it.
What the Apron Is
It is a hand-painted silk apron, roughly two hundred years old. The paint depicts Masonic symbols and is applied with a level of craft consistent with work intended as a meaningful gift rather than a functional working tool. Lafayette had carried it through his Masonic life in America and France before giving it to WB Treat in Troy in 1824 at the age of sixty-seven, likely knowing it was the last time he would see that lodge or that country.
Marquis de Lafayette Lodge No. 41 takes its name from the man who owned it. That connection is why this lodge is called what it is, meets where it meets, and keeps this particular object behind glass in the lobby rather than in a storage closet.
Sources: Lodge records of Albert Pike Lodge No. 117; Grand Lodge of Ohio (freemason.com); Craftsmen Online, Lafayette Bicentennial Masonic Events (2024); Masonic Library and Museum of Indiana (mlmindiana.org); Mark A. Tabbert, American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities (NYU Press, 2005).