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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020 Issue 1 - The Oddfellows Enigma.pdfThis special newsletter is a gift to our biggest supporters: Benefactor, Patron, Business, and Life members. Your support makes what we do possible. We hope you enjoy this story from Renton's past. The Museum holds a small collection of thirteen portraits taken by David Roby Judkins, most of Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) members and taken in 1886, the donor told us. These constitute some of our very earliest photos of prominent Rentonites—one of them a woman—taken at a time when Renton was a small outpost on the Duwamish and Black Rivers with a population of about 400 residents. This piece represents our research on this collection to date; we hope there is more to come. Renton’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) Lodge No. 28 (later No. 8) was chartered on January 12, 1884 by the Grand Lodge of Washington, with eleven members.1 We know little about the first years of the Odd Fellows in Renton, but some of what we do know comes from a small but remarkable collection of photographs taken in a Seattle studio in the 1880s by photographer David Roby Judkins. These ten cabinet cards, along with seven others taken by Judkins’ brother Joseph, are among the earliest images we hold of first Renton’s non-Native residents. These images capture the little- known strivers who shaped Renton as a “city of industry,” in About This Issue... RENTON HISTORICALSOCIETY & MUSEUM Special Issue February 2020 Volume 51 Number 1 Continued on page 4 THE ODD FELLOWS ENIGMA QUARTERLY by Elizabeth P. Stewart 2 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM UPCOMING EVENTS GENDER IN SPORTS April 2 6:00-7:00 pm What is the relationship between sports and society? Join Dr. Alyssa Hellrung for a discussion of how sports shape cultural ideas of masculinity and femininity. Dr. Hellrung is a current professor in the Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies department at UW. 2019 HIGHLIGHTS VIRTUAL TOUR OF RENTON'S AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL SITES February 6 6:00 - 7:00 pm Join John Houston and Benita Horn as they share the remarkable history of Renton’s African American residents. Learn about the center of the Black community, effects of development, local luminaries, and more. BLACK FASHIONISTA! March 5 6:00 - 7:00 pm The fashion industry, like many industries in the United States, is dominated by White designers. Celebrate the history of Black women fashion designers, their fashion sense, and the celebrities they have styled during the 21st century. COFFEE WITH THE CURATOR March 21 11:00 am - 12:00 pm Join us for coffee and a behind- the-scenes look at our new exhibit, Sparkle! Curator Sarah Samson will show arifacts from the collection that did not make it into the exhibit while offering insights into the her exhibit process. FEBRUARY: Curator Sarah Samson ferried coal mining artifacts to Seattle to feature in a taping of Knute Berger's Mossback's Northwest TV for KCTS 9. JULY: Renton History Live! featured the story of Pieter Prins's Renton Americanization School and Renton immigrants gaining their American citizenship. AUGUST: In conjuction with our exhibit Hero's Feast: Finding Community Through Dungeons & Dragons we hosted a d20 Dames podcast taping. They created a special museum adventure just for us! MARCH: King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn and Mayor Denis Law visited the Museum to see our new monumental sign, awning, and building lettering. Funding from King County Council and 4Culture made this project happen. SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2020 | 3 MUSEUM REPORT Special Edition January 2020 Elizabeth P. Stewart Director This year promises to be an exciting one for the celebration of history, with many landmarks in American civic life to commemorate. The centennial of national women’s suffrage, the 2020 census, the presidential election—all of these civic events provide an opportunity to renew our ties to our neighbors, our city, our country, and our fellow human beings. This summer in honor of national women’s suffrage we’re very excited to be creating an exhibit in honor of all the women who fought for their rights before us. What Difference Do Renton Women Make? will look at the many Renton women who changed public life here in our city. We’ve covered the "firsts" fairly frequently: first woman Mayor, Barbara Shinpoch, for example, or the first woman to cast a vote in Washington state, Rentonite Mary Wilson. Now this new exhibit will give us a chance to look at the many women who created institutions here in Renton and blazed new trails for women. They all have fascinating stories: Lydia Trudgian, a nurse who spent thousands of hours raising money for the new Renton Hospital in the 1940s - the 1960s. Marjorie Pitter, civil rights activist who led protests against segregated restrooms at PACCAR. Clotilda “Tillie” Cole, who established the first low- income housing for the elderly in Washington in the 1960s. We’re excited to be able to offer this exhibit to inspire the next generation of women activists! In the spring Renton will be engaged in ensuring that every Renton resident participates in the 2020 census, our once-a-decade constitutionally mandated opportunity to make our voices count. As constant users of historic census data, Museum staff know how vital it is that everyone be counted. We’re proud that Renton has grown exponentially since the last census. As a community institution, we’ll be helping the City encourage participation, so that historians seventy years from now have good data to work with. Every four years, the presidential election is a civic event that we all anticipate with excitement and trepidation. Who will lead our country, and what differences will they make in our day-to-day lives? Having just gone through a mayoral election in 2019, Rentonites know that we can weather political passions and come out the other side stronger. “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection,” Pres. Abraham Lincoln advised in his First Inaugural Address in 1861 on the eve of Civil War. Our affection for one another and our republic can be constantly renewed at the community level, if we focus on “the better angels of our nature.” As a community museum, we look forward to celebrating these events right along with you! by Elizabeth P. Stewart, Museum Director Nurse Lydia Trudgian on Wells Ave S, ca. 1950s. (From scrapbook RHM# 1992.127.001) RENTON HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Sarah Samson Graphic Design & Layout Karl Hurst City of Renton Print & Mail Services RENTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES Colleen Lenahan, President Laura Clawson, Vice President Jessica Kelly, Treasurer Doug Brownlow, Secretary Betsy Prather, 2021 Lynne King, 2022 Rhea Kimble, 2022 Mike Lennox, 2022 Elizabeth Stewart, Board Liaison MUSEUM STAFF Elizabeth P. Stewart Museum Director Sarah Samson Curator of Collections & Exhibitions Kate Dugdale Public Engagement Coordinator Stephanie Snyder Office Aide RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM 235 MILL AVENUE S RENTON, WA 98057 P (425) 255-2330 HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00am - 4:00pm ADMISSION: $5 (Adult) $2 (Child)Eileen Thornton Smith's voter registration card was signed by City Clerk Agnes Edwards in 1943. With many men away at war, women kept the city running during WWII. (RHM# 1986.036.001) 4 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM Continued from page 1 Cover photo: David Judkins in his "Pullman Studio" in Skagway, Alaska, ca. 1898. (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW 40492) Judkins made two trips to Alaska to photograph Gold Rushers, one in 1882–1883 and another in 1898–1899. Charles Sumner Custer wearing the Treasurer's jewels of the I.O.O.F. (RHM# 2000.024.5307) part by adhering to Odd Fellows’ values of charitable actions, hard work, cautious capitalism, and what we would call today “networking” through universal fraternity. The establishment of an Odd Fellows chapter signaled that Renton settlers were here to stay. The organization served numerous functions. Its original charter was “to improve and elevate the character of man,” and they did this through regular social and charitable activities. Membership in a lodge conferred some status, as members worked through a series of rituals to gain higher access to the lodge’s secrets. But the Odd Fellows were also the first American fraternal order to operate as a mutual benefit society; by “passing the hat,” Odd Fellows provided money for members’ medical bills, funerals, and dependent support after a member’s death. These were invaluable insurance services when many Renton men worked with their hands in dangerous coal mines and timber mills. Photography arrived on the Pacific Coast at the same time as the Odd Fellows. The first advertised daguerreotype studio opened in San Francisco in January 1849, and California Lodge No. 1 was chartered in September of the same year. Studios quickly proliferated after that—in California, anyway, where the Gold Rush created an excitement for documentary photography and the disposable income to make it lucrative.2 When David Judkins arrived in California from his birthplace in New England he was a struggling 27-year-old photographer. Judkins honed his craft in California from 1863 to 1868 and again in 1876-1877. By the time Judkins reached Seattle around 1879, he had already apprenticed or set up his own shops in San Francisco, CA; Downieville, CA; Mendocino, CA; Rockford, IL; and Fitchburg, MA.3 He arrived only three years after the Seattle I.O.O.F. lodge was chartered.4 Photography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a fast-changing profession—from daguerreotypes to tintypes to ambrotypes to ferrotypes to glass plates—and while the public was fascinated with the different technologies allowing them to capture images forever, many small towns and even estimable cities could barely support a would-be professional photographer. “Photographers often had to take on other jobs or work on the road as itinerants, seldom staying anywhere long enough to put down roots,” one archivist observed. “Photographers had to be improvisers, mechanics, and inventors.”5 They set up shop in hotel rooms, tents, or the backs of stores, and some even used large traveling wagons. Some were artists who traveled to document the unspoiled and untamed vistas of a newly settling West; Judkins traveled to find more and better-paying customers.6 Judkins was one of Seattle’s earliest photographers.7 When he arrived he was 43 years old, childless, and in an unhappy marriage; he probably had just enough capital to relaunch his business in a new city. In December 1879 he filed for divorce from his wife Ellen and put into action an innovative idea: the “Floating Sunbeam Gallery,” a studio on a barge that could travel the Puget Sound. When customers dried up in one town, he floated off to another. “The Judkins floating gallery is almost as pretty as a lady’s bonnet,” the Seattle Daily Intelligencer reported. “It is got up in shape and colors to attract Susan Jane Harris Custer, Charles' wife and member of the Rebekahs. Susan's portrait was donated to the Museum as part of a different collection, but the background and props indicate they were taken on the same day as her husband's. (RHM# 2000.127.8051) SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2020 | 5 and please the eye.”8 The barge left on its first excursion in May or June 1880, and that summer he floated to Snohomish City, Tulalip, Stanwood, Utsalady on Camano Island, and Port Gamble.9 On Christmas Day 1880, Judkins married twenty-year- old Ida A. Bangs, “a very estimable lady.”10 By the time the ten Odd Fellows in our collection visited his studio, D. R. Judkins had already built a reputation for himself in Seattle. Cabinet cards were his specialty, $6.00 for a dozen photographs mounted on 6 ½ x 4 ¼” cards suitable for framing or sharing with friends.11 Judkins knew that cultivating Seattle’s many lodges and fraternal orders could be a lucrative source of regular income for him, especially in the 1880s and 1890s as many new lodges formed in the West. In 1886 he made a distinguished photo of the first Noble Grand Rebekah in Washington state, Mrs. Nellie Wood, complete with gavel. As the wife of King County’s popular auditor, Lyman Wood, and herself the chaplain of Seattle’s Rebekah Lodge No. 6 for twenty years, Mrs. Wood enjoyed a countywide reputation among lodge members.12 Enter our ten lodge members. This collection arrived at the Renton History Museum as a donation from Harold Macklin, a sixty-year member of the Renton Odd Fellows who had held all the local lodge offices and some at the state level.13 The photos were displayed together in an elegant walnut frame with a specially cut mat that surrounded all ten portraits. All the gentlemen wore I.O.O.F. regalia indicating various offices, including scribe, warden, treasurer, and others. The men in some images were identified and others were not; all now have names.14 In addition to their Odd Fellow membership, these gentleman shared one other characteristic: they were all associated with either Renton or Newcastle. These members represented a cross-section of the cities’ leaders. Scottish immigrant James Weir serves as a good example of the material benefits of lodge membership. Weir was a charter member, and later Noble Grand, of the Newcastle Lodge No. 8, founded in 1877, but he later shifted his membership to the Renton lodge as the Newcastle lodge became less active.15 He worked in the Newcastle and Renton mines until he had saved enough money to open a Renton saloon around 1887. He was a Renton delegate to the King County Republican Convention in 1882 and later served four successive terms in the Washington state legislature. By 1890 he had moved his family to Seattle where he owned and operated the New England Hotel, a jumping- off point for the Yukon Gold Rush.16 Weir later left the Odd Fellows altogether—perhaps over his activities as a saloonkeeper and hotelier—but Past Grand Master and Washington Odd Fellows historian H. E. Holmes wrote of him in 1913 that “he is a prosperous citizen and a prominent property owner.”17 Another Renton charter member, Charles Sumner Custer, served with Weir as a Renton delegate to the County Republican Convention in September 1882. Custer moved to Newcastle in about 1880. By 1881 he was commissioned Renton’s Postmaster and he started the Renton Mercantile Store. Custer died suddenly of kidney disease at age 34, leaving a wife and three children.18 Fellow lodge member William Wood placed a memorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on behalf of the Renton lodge, reading in part, “RESOLVED, That this lodge has lost a worthy brother true and steadfast, always foremost in his duties, and … we deplore the loss of our beloved brother.”19 Renton lodge membership reflected the town’s economy, in which coal miners were determined to make a better life for themselves and their families. Like James Weir, Alexander Fournier worked as a coal miner and mine carpenter Alexander S. Fournier wears the jewels of a Past Noble Grand. (RHM# 2000.024.5308) James Weir, later a Washington state legislator, hotelier, and "owner of one of the finest ranches in the White River valley." (RHM# 2000.024.5309) 6 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM in Newcastle before settling in Earlington. By 1900 he was able to buy 80 acres where he built a substantial house and an orchard for his growing family. He stayed on his farm until 1919, when he moved into Renton.20 Another Odd Fellow, Thomas Vow, born in Wales, worked in the coal mines in Newcastle and Renton from 1879 until his death in 1920. His self-improvement took the form of service to his community; in addition to his membership in the Odd Fellows, Vow was a Knight of Pythias, a St. Andrew’s Lodge Mason, and a member of Renton’s first church, the Renton Presbyterian Church.21 Renton’s close association with Newcastle meant that Odd Fellows from both towns were well-acquainted with one another. In 1887, during a period of intense labor unrest around the Newcastle mines, the Newcastle Lodge was absorbed into Renton Lodge No. 28; the new lodge became Renton Lodge No. 8. Some of the men in these photos would have been more familiar to Newcastle residents. James Perry—or sometimes “Parry”—illustrates this. Perry lived and mined in Newcastle in the 1880s; he worked there during the labor riots. In spite of his humble beginnings, Perry amassed a portfolio of considerable property, including lots in Seattle and shares in a California Building Association.22 On considering this collection, we are left with almost as many questions as we started with. We originally assumed that the group depicted the charter members of Renton Lodge No. 28, perhaps on or near the occasion of the lodge’s charter in 1884. In comparing this collection with a list of charter members, however, we discovered that numerous prominent charter members are missing. Not pictured are: A. C. Anderson; Harold Evans, grocer and real estate entrepreneur; coal miners Thomas Horrocks and Abe Jones; Crain Woodworth, Renton dairy farmer and appraiser; surveyor Joshua Morris; miner William J. Priestly; lumberman F. S. Kinney; and farmer and miner Allen Stark.23 Were these gentlemen officers of the lodge? Many of them are wearing regalia indicating that they are officers, but not all of them. Were the photos taken at a special occasion? The background and corner of a velvet chaise longue with gold braid seems to suggest that all were taken in Judkins’ studio on the same day; even Charles Sumner Custer’s wife, Susan Harris Custer, is pictured with the same studio set-up, suggesting she accompanied her (perhaps already ailing) husband on that day. The similarities among these photos suggest that Renton I.O.O.F. Lodge No. 8 may have taken the opportunity during a regional or statewide meeting in Seattle to go together to the studio and have their portraits made in their proudest regalia. Did the collection commemorate their merger with the Newcastle lodge in 1887? The inclusion of several Newcastle-only members suggests that it might. We do know that these men—and one woman—were so proud of their association with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows that they commissioned David Roby Judkins to commemorate their membership. Their adherence to the Odd Fellows’ tenets—Friendship, Love, Truth, Faith, Hope, Charity, and Universal Justice—contributed to their success in life. Their ability to commission these images was a mark of that connection between brotherhood and reaching the pinnacle of success. For David Judkins, this collection of images may have been an entrée into a new set of customers. Together Judkins and these I.O.O.F. Lodge members captured a slice of life in early Renton that would otherwise have disappeared. Above: cabinet card back. Below: one of Judkins' earliest advertisements, September 1879, indicated he was a photographic "artist." Thomas Vow wears I.O.O.F. Sentinel jewels. The sentinel guarded the door of the lodge meeting room. (RHM# 2000.024.5310) SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2020 | 7 David Judkins' "Floating Sunbeam Gallery" photography studio in Seattle, between 1880-1884. (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW 40491) ENDNOTES 1 Tom Monahan, “Friendship, Love and Truth: The Independent Order of Odd Fellows in Renton,” Renton Historical Society & Museum Newsletter (Feb 2000), 1. 2 H. E. Holmes, Pioneer Links; A Narrative of the Establishment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows on the Pacific Coast and a History of Odd Fellowship in Washington to 1880 (Seattle: Press of the Washington Odd Fellow, 1913), 5; “Introduction,” Peter Palmquist and Thomas Kilbourn, eds., Pioneer Photographers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840 - 1865 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 9-11. 3 Palmquist and Kilbourn, eds., Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, 340. Judkins had six siblings who were also photographers, including Joseph C. Judkins, who also worked in Seattle; Lorenzo Dow Judkins; and Sarah Judkins Wright. Daughter Hazle’s husband Miles Weaver also took up photographer after their wedding and continued until his death in 1932. 4 Holmes, Pioneer Links, 5. 5 “Introduction,” Palmquist and Kilbourn, eds., Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, 27. 6 “Introduction,” Palmquist and Kilbourn, eds., Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, 29. 7 The Seattle City Directory for 1888 has only five photographers listed. Photographer Theodore E. Peiser arrived in Seattle in 1883 from San Francisco and William F. Boyd moved here from Des Moines, Iowa in 1889. Cabinet cards made by both are in the collection of the Renton History Museum. Seattle, Washington City Directory for 1888 - 89 (Seattle: Seattle Directory Co., 1888), 263. By 1890 David Roby Judkins’ brother Joseph had joined him in Seattle; the Renton History Museum holds five of his cabinet cards. 8 Daily Intelligencer (Seattle), 19 May 1880, p.3. 9 “Moving About,” Daily Intelligencer, 14 Aug 1880, p.3; Daily Intelligencer, 19 Sep 1880, p.3. 10 “Death of Mrs. Ida A. Judkins,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 25 Sep 1895, p.2. David and Ida had three children—John Roby, Edith, and Etta Hazle Judkins Weaver—two of whom died young before Ida’s own tragic death at age 35. Hazle was her father’s close companion for many years. 11 Daily Intelligencer, 27 Sep 1879, p.2; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 16 Oct 1891, p.5; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 Feb 1892, p.13. 12 “Nellie Wood (Mrs. Lyman Wood) in Rebekah Lodge regalia, 1886,” Portraits Collection, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collection, #280.15. (https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/portraits/ id/2012/rec/1), (accessed on 18 Dec 2019). “Prominent Lodge Woman Dies at 80,” Seattle Times, 21 Sep 1917, p.16. In 1896 Nellie Wood provided instrumental music during the Renton lodge’s eleventh anniversary program. “In the Lodge Room,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 Jan 1896, p.5. 13 “Harold Ralph Macklin (July 3, 1913 – May 18, 2005),” obituary, n.p., n.d. 14 The men documented in these photos are: Dr. Bryan (possibly Dr. E. A. Bryan, University of Washington president); Duncan Buchanan; Charles Burgh (or deBurgh); Charles Sumner Custer; Alexander S. Fournier; James Perry; Allen Stark; Thomas Vow; James Weir; and Charles Young. Susan Harris Custer’s photo was taken at the same time, but was not framed with the others. 15 Holmes, Pioneer Links, 159-161. Holmes observed that “on account of the transient character of a mining town, Newcastle Lodge No. 8 can never hope to be a big Lodge, but it has valuable real estate investments and is in a fine financial condition and well able to care for all its future responsibilities.” 16 “Pioneer Hotel Man of Seattle Called by Death,” Seattle Times, 11 Feb 1920, p.9; “James Weir,” Seattle Times, 12 Feb 1920, p.11. 17 Holmes, Pioneer Links, 160. Weir got into some trouble for his refusal to close an ongoing blackjack game at his New England Hotel in 1901. “Still Runs Black Jack; James Weir Defies Mayor and Police Department,” Seattle Times, 16 Dec 1901, p.15. 18 Son Bertram later started Renton Hardware, also known as Custer Hardware. 19 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 Jan 1891, p.6. 20 Bagley, A History of King County, III:263; “Alex Fournier,” Renton Chronicle, 26 Sep 1940, p.4. 21 “Rites for Pioneer Miner to be Held Tomorrow,” Seattle Times, 15 Nov 1925, p.35; RHM# 1966.012.0001. 22 Sadly, James Perry proved an exception to the rule of Oddfellows’ success. In 1894, widowed or deserted by his wife, he committed suicide, leaving behind a fourteen-year-old daughter. “His Nerves Failed,” Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 4 Mar 1894, p.5. 23 Bagley, History of King County, Washington, I:758. 8 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM IN HINDSIGHT... RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM 235 Mill Ave. S Renton, WA 98057 David Judkins' Seattle studio at Second & Columbia Streets, before 1889. (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW 12648) The large windows halfway back allowed plenty of natural light for photography.