‘Masonic sights at the NRA museum’

     

So I took Saturday off from Masonic Week to catch up with an old friend who relocated to Virginia recently, and we headed to the headquarters of the National Rifle Association in Fairfax to visit its National Firearms Museum.

I don’t think it unreasonable at all that I expected to find at least one firearm inside that was decorated with fine engraving of Masonic symbols, not because of a Masonic fanaticism, but just from a knowledge of historic firearms and of how Masons exhibit pride in their membership by adorning important personal possessions with obvious clues of their Masonic lives.

I figured I would have found something like these Colts, but decorated with plumbs, squares, levels, etc.

But I failed to find any such gun. There may be one or more exhibited, but I missed them. We spent nearly three hours(!) inside—that’s pretty much what it takes to make a careful review of the thousand or more items on display—but after an hour or so, the eye grows weary. I shot 128 photos before I realized it’s too hard to capture everything. My advice is to visit this amazing resource and see for yourselves. Bring walking shoes and energy bars. On display are everything from a medieval hand cannon (I always thought that was merely a figure of speech) to the Gatling gun used so memorably in The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Anyway, I did find a few other items of Masonic interest.

Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s Masonic Robey M1850 S&FO Sword (ca. 1863) – “Hancock the Superb” commanded the Federal troops on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, and he ran for president as a Democrat in 1880. He was a brother at labor in Charity Lodge 190 in Pennsylvania.

I didn’t know Hancock was a Freemason, and I wasn’t especially drawn to this sword because it was displayed at ankle-level and the presence of Masonic symbols is anything but obvious. But I was on the lookout for Masonic symbols in this museum and, with some bodily contortion, I espied a small Square and Compasses (and maybe more) on the guard of the weapon. I’m sorry. I don’t know if you’ll see it here. Photography of this item was difficult, but it is there.

This powder horn was nice to see. Masonic folk art, made by soldiers, sailors, pioneers, artisans, and guys just sitting at home, can take any form, but carvings of animal bone are very common.

This leather pouch didn’t exactly jump out at me, but I was near enough to spot the Square and Compasses the way the initiated eye inevitably discerns such things amid busy scenery. This was a prop in the film The Alamo from 1960, and was worn by Richard Widmark in his portrayal of Bro. Jim Bowie.

There are museums, and there are museums, and this one is in the latter category for its incredibly vast inventory on display. Firearms from throughout the centuries and from all over the world (God, some French gunsmiths of the 1800s were insane!) are showcased as matter of factly as any items chronicling human achievement. It’s impossible to list a top ten of the most impressive, but the pistols fashioned in the form of the M1911 that were homemade by Viet Cong machinists simply demonstrate how intractably determined they were to fight. Those weapons certainly were primitive, but I’m sure they worked.