For an apron, this one has seen better days. But then again, this is no ordinary relic. It once belonged to explorer Meriwether Lewis, the first Mason to ever set foot in Montana, and it was found on his body after his suspicious death on the Natchez Trace in 1809.
Now, nearly 200 years later, the apron lies at the heart of a growing controversy within the Masonic order. The problem? Who should display it and where?
In what some Masons say was an impromptu decision, Alan Harkins, the grand master of the Grand Lodge of Montana, agreed to remove the apron from the Masonic museum in Helena and loan it to the Missouri Historical Society. There, the relic will become part of the travelling National Bicentennial Exhibition on Lewis and Clark. Those who disagree with Harkins' decision to loan the apron to the Missouri museum point out that the traveling exhibit will never stop in Montana. More importantly, they say, the apron will be as far away as Philadelphia when the bicentennial reaches Montana in 2005.
Reid Gardner, the curator of the Masonic museum in Helena and the grand secretary of the Grand Lodge, said that while he respects Harkins' decision to loan the apron, he ultimately disagrees with it. "I'm not one of the people who are in favor of that," Gardner said. "The apron is the focal point of our museum and we would hate to see it leave." Gardner fears that once the apron leaves Montana it may never return. He said the Missouri Historical Society has shown interest in obtaining the apron for nearly 15 years. What's more, he said, allowing the relic to leave the Grand Lodge in Helena would break a promise made to Joseph Hopper more than 40 years ago.
In 1961, during a Grand Lodge session, Hopper, then the grand master, presented the apron with the promise that it never leave the Grand Lodge of Montana. The motion, Gardner said, passed unanimously. To send the apron away, he said, would violate the lodge's fraternal promise...
...what troubles the curator the most isn't the promise made to Hopper in 1961. Rather, he said, without the apron, the museum won't be able to attract many visitors when the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial comes to Montana. Before Gardner took over as curator, the Masonic museum lacked organization. Relics weren't identified or inventoried and Lewis' apron sat unprotected under glass. Gardner turned the museum around, hoping to make it a stop for tourists.
“We've been working diligently on this museum, gearing up for the bicentennial,'' Gardner said. “To let that apron go as an artifact — it would be sad to let that happen. The more you let things leave Montana the less of a reason people have to come here.''
Gardner's efforts to promote the museum didn't end with labels and plaques. He helped commission Helena artist Bob Morgan, who recently painted Lewis wearing the famous apron near the confluence of the Deerborn and Missouri rivers in Montana. That painting hangs above the fireplace in the Grand Lodge museum, proudly centered over the display of Lewis' apron.
"That apron is probably the most significant artifact in the museum — it's our crown jewel,'' Gardner said. "That's the image we were trying to present with the painting.''
From the Montana Standard