Home Click on Site Map, below, to view all pages on this site. SITE MAP Support This Site Click on Search This Site, below, to quickly search for words or phrases. SEARCH THIS SITE Lodge Locations Find a Lodge Jewelry Masonic Jewelry Rings Watches Regalia and Jewelry Popular Pages Why Im a Member Wife Questions Antique Jewelry Freemasons Become a Mason Lodge Audit Lodge Software Masters Hats Insurance Ritual Verses Master Mason Degree Chairs Fundraising Ideas Entered Apprentice Rituals What is Freemasonry? Jokes Clip Art Masonic Clip Art Prince Hall Clip Art Symbols & Emblems Freemason Symbols Symbols & Emblems Send Masonic E-Cards Books Freemason Books EA, FC, MM Quizzes Masonic Quizzes Inside The Lodge Inside The Lodge About This Website Contact Us Site Testimonials Newest Pages Privacy Policy Disclaimer Advertising Policy Affiliate Disclaimer Link To This Website [?]Subscribe To This Site XML RSS follow us in feedly Add to My Yahoo! Add to My MSN What Is A Masonic Trestle Board? Masonic Tracing Board Trestle Board Why Freemasons Square The Lodge Room. A Masonic trestle board is a design board for the Master Workman (Architect) to draw his plans and designs upon to give the workmen an outline of the work to be performed. In todays terms, we might call it a blueprint. It is one of the 3 Movable jewels. A trestle board is a framework consisting of (usually 3) vertical, slanted supports (or legs) with one or more horizontal crosspieces on which to hang or display an item. Today, it is better known as an easel. Some jurisdictions around the world call it a tracing board. It would be somewhat of a circular logic task to argue the difference, as, while neither can be fully proven (in historical writings), the Tracing board may very well have predeceded (come before) the use of the word Trestleboard because lodges in Europe (which pre-date American lodges), use the word Tracing Board. Hirams Tracing Board: Hiram Abifs tracing board is believed to have been made of wood, covered with a coating of wax. Each day he would draw his Master architects measurements and symbols into the wax in order to instruct his Master Masons of the work that was to be accomplished. At the end of the day, he would simply scrape off the wax and pour a new layer of hot wax onto the board to ready it for the next days work. Masonic Tracing Board: Much later, in the days where lodge was held in secret areas and on hills and vales, (valleys) once lodge was in session, the Tiler (or Tyler) would draw an oblong (rectangular) or oblong square depiction (image) into the dirt that represented the form of the lodge. Again, onto that tracing board was drawn the architects plan...the working tools in the degree that was to be worked. Masonic Trestle Board: Through the years, the Masonic Tracing Board progressed to charcoal or chalk on the floor of taverns where lodges were held back in the 1700s. After the lecture, the Stewards or the Entered Apprentice, as a lesson in secrecy, would get a mop and bucket and remove all trace of these drawings. This, obviously, was a somewhat tedious and messy procedure, so cloths or rugs were created which could be laid onto the floor and simply folded up when the lecture was complete. Later, these cloths (or rugs) were placed onto a table. As time passed, they were finally hung onto an easel...(a trestle board) much like a drawing board at a construction site where each workman could receive clear instruction as to what his specific participation entailed. When the teams work was completed, it was obvious that each Master Mason not only understood their specific part in the undertaking, but how their part (no matter how small), contributed to the construction of the entire edifice (building). The meaning of the words Nothing further remains to be done, according to ancient custom, except to disarrange our emblems is a reference to the now antiquated use of these trestleboards (or tracing boards) during which the dirt on the ground was erased or the chalk marks on the floor of these lodges was mopped or scrubbed, to leave no trace of the form of the Lodge or the contents drawn thereon. The reason why our lines of travel are at right angles within the lodge and thus the reason that we square the lodge is a throwback to the antiquity of the ritual. If the brethren were to walk atop the markings made in the dirt on hill and vale; atop the chalk on the floor of the taverns; or tread upon and thus soil the cloths or rugs used to provide the workings of that degree, the message of that lecture which was being worked could be partially or fully destroyed. Masons Hill and Dale Therefore, Squaring the Lodge in a semi-military-like precision, goes back many centuries as the means of preserving the ritual and the degrees being worked so as not to destroy the symbolism of their markings before their usefulness on that day has been completed. How old is the use of Tracing Boards? Click on the link, below, to read about this tracing board which was found during an excavation of the Mount Vesuvius volcano eruption in 79 AD,...1800 years before its discovery in 1874. Masonic scholars note its similarities to todays Freemasonry trestle boards. If, after you click on it, its font is too small, press your keyboards control key at the same time as the + key (to the left of your backspace key) to enlarge the font. Tracing Board Found During Pompeii Excavation Many modern-day lodges now simply use a bulletin board or electronic newsletter to notify the brethren of a degree which will be worked. Others use PowerPoint or slide presentations. Low Cost Lodge Website Trestle Board: One of the easiest ways, today, to notify the majority of the brethren (those with internet access) is to create a website and ask its Webmaster to include an up-to-date calendar. Free Lodge Website Trestle Board: The least expensive (and easiest) way to create a Lodge Trestle Board is to simply create a lodge e-mail address at Yahoo! (or other provider), e.g. (your-lodge-name-your-lodge-number@yahoo), which comes with a public calendar feature so that those who have internet access may simply click on the URL (address) of the updated calendar to view the time and date of degrees to be performed. (You can make the calendar available publicly and still keep
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 08:44:29 +0000