Grand Lodge of Virginia Museum

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:01]Welcome to NineM Road, the official podcast of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, ancient, free, and accepted masons. I'm your host, Worshipful Brother Jason Himsey. Each episode, we sit down with lodge leaders, scholars, and community guests to explore Masonic history, leadership, lodge best practices in issues that matter to Masons, and to curious listeners beyond the craft.

[00:00:28]Whether you're a brother, a family member, or simply interested in what Freemasonry stands for, you're welcome here. Now, let's begin. Greetings. I'm Worshful brother Jason Himsey. And today on the 9mm road podcast, I have with me Wright Worshful, Gino Williams, who's been uh appointed by the Grandmaster to be the liaison between the Grand Line and the board of directors for the museum and library here in the Grand Lodge of Virginia. And today we are meeting you here in the library.

[00:01:03]>> Ray Washful.

[00:01:05]>> Yes, sir.

[00:01:05]>> What is the history of the museum and the library? Well, the museum and library has been here for a while. Uh, but it has been mainly a collection facility as opposed to a display facility. Completely changed now. And it goes back 40 years even though the records and the archives and the the items in this lodge go back all the way to the beginning back to 1778.

[00:01:30]And so we are a collection of archives and artifacts that that transcend the history of Freemasonry in Virginia.

[00:01:38]>> You know, I heard that we have a new curator. What can you tell me about her?

[00:01:42]>> Well, uh, we had a cur librarian curator here um, who Marie Barnett who was here for about 40 years. She was connected originally to the Masonic home. uh spent her entire life and career basically working on this. Um not a lot of assets spent uh by the Grand Lodge here and when she retired the Grand Line made a commitment through the Grandmaster to hire a a full-time curator and Elizabeth Jud was hired. She has a tremendous amount of experience. And if you have been to the Grand Lodge Museum and Library before and and now after Elizabeth is here, you'll find a considerable change in the way things are displayed, the interpretation and that sort of thing. And she has a tremendous experience, lots of contacts across the Commonwealth and a lot of contacts within the museum community at large. So, it's it's been a a change. I think you can see that from the the way the things are displayed in here now as opposed to where we were at before.

[00:02:46]>> Definitely a beautiful touch just walking around. It's it's amazing. Uh every brother in Virginia should come come check it out.

[00:02:53]>> I think so. It's been fun and there's always something new that's being discovered in in the records and in the boxes and in storage uh telling the story of Freemasonry in Virginia.

[00:03:05]>> What uh would you say is the greatest need for the museum and library right now? Well, ultimately it's funding. Uh we probably could use a second person here to free u Liz up to do some grant writing and the kinds of things I think she can do. U volunteer dosent would be great. Uh and people that are interested in in uh helping preserve the history of of Freemasonry in Virginia. you know, it's we started we treated this as started from ground zero >> and uh in 12 months she has changed the the nature of the displays uh and what we're able to show in in that history.

[00:03:44]>> Great. Uh how are the operations funded here in the library?

[00:03:48]>> Well, the the brethren have been paying 50 cents of their dues uh as a contribution towards what we spend.

[00:03:55]There's been other money spent. There's been donations. Uh obviously there's been a dues increase that will go into effect that will help fund this basically covering Liz's position.

[00:04:06]>> Okay.

[00:04:07]>> Uh there is a little bit of money, but you know, we're going to be actively raising funds uh both through grants and and eventually looking for perhaps somebody that wants to put their name on the museum and endow endow the material here.

[00:04:21]>> Uh tell me, right, Worshful, what is your favorite artifact or item here in the museum? There's a bunch of them. Uh, you know, from the J the John Dove material to the the cornerstone or the brick from the White House, the Roy Clark material. Um, a one of the grand masters particularly likes the Wooten desk that's back there that the grand secretary used. Uh, so there's a whole lot of items here. I >> I could see how it would be a struggle just walking around the the museum.

[00:04:53]There's a lot of uh neat uh and unique pieces here. uh that that are are part of our fraternity. Brightwashful. So, uh are there any uh specific pieces here in the museum that are missing that you might need help locating?

[00:05:07]>> Brother Leonard Row would be uh yelling at me if I didn't talk about it. We've got missing portraits of Grand Masters from basically around the War of 1812.

[00:05:19]>> Um there were originally 15 of them missing. Uh brother Row is uh has come up with five of those. And so we've got these gaps and it would be nice to fill those portraits in. You know, these were all prominent people in Virginia. Uh and so we think they're out there. They may have actually been removed from the Grand Lodge uh around the time the British were coming up to Chesapeake and uh may have been stored somewhere, but it would be good to fill those in.

[00:05:46]That's something that he's working on, and I think it would be good to take care of if we could do that.

[00:05:52]>> Great.

[00:05:53]And uh finally, what uh do you see as the future of the museum and library?

[00:05:58]>> Well, you know, obviously we want to continue to collect the artifacts and make sure that the story of Freemasonry is available here. We want to be able to go on the road with it to the lodges as they're celebrating anniversaries or having special programs where we can package up a box of material that's uh directed to that lodge or that particular area and we can put some of that on the road so the brethren can be sharing it out there in in the uh the rest of Virginia so that they don't have to come here for all of it even though we we recommend particularly on family day they come down and enjoy a lot of that part of it. Well, that's a great idea, uh, right, Worsh. And if I could just make a plug for the museum with with the brethren, particularly the brethren uh here in Virginia. Uh if you know of any artifacts in your collections uh in your lodges that you feel uh merit uh you being held in perpetuity for for to honor the craft certainly reach out to to writeful uh Williams here and uh see if there's a place for it here.

[00:07:03]>> Yeah. One of the things too is that we one of the things we want to do as we go forward is to be able to help lodges with restoration information. Uh identifying things that are important. I mean, we stumble on things here all the time. That's one of the things that Liz and the grand secretary are constantly letting me know they found something because they know I'm very interested in that part of it. Um and we never know what important thing is here. There is a particular piece here that was in the collection and displayed for years in a corner and those who had been here before would remember we had a set of dishes from Fairfax Lodge. Pretty neat, you know, in in terms of of that part of it. But in the corner of that display, there was this little portrait uh pencil sketch of Washington going to lay the cornerstone when he was marching with Alexander Lodge 22 to lay the cornerstone of the capital. And it is a Benjamin Latroe piece.

[00:08:04]>> Okay.

[00:08:04]>> Uh who was of course the architect of the of the capital and it uh was just sitting in there and and you know we we stumble on things. Uh some of it is just we we've got so many things we don't know all the history of it. And like I said we can use volunteers in here that dosen and free Liz up to do some things that we need her to do. Uh grant writing and the kinds of things that that we haven't been able to do to this point.

[00:08:29]Well, thank you, Rful. I appreciate your time and uh for sharing the the museum with the with the fraternity and with the public.

[00:08:36]>> Absolutely. We look forward to seeing you here.

[00:08:38]>> All right. Well, that concludes this episode of the NM Road Podcast. Hope you enjoyed it.

[00:09:14]Thank you for joining us on this episode of NMI Road, the official podcast of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, ancient, free, and accepted masons. If you have questions about this episode or if you're interested in learning more about Freemasonry, please visit the Grand Lodge of Virginia online at www.grandlodgeofverirginia.org or explore www.beafreemason.org and complete the I'm interested form.

[00:09:45]Until next time, thank you for listening and travel safely.