Tracing Boards and the Master’s Carpet: From Chalk on the Tavern Floor to the Lodge Chart

Overview

A tracing board is a teaching picture that shows the emblems of a degree. It began as a chalk-and-charcoal drawing on the lodge floor, then became painted floorcloths and boards. In England it became the Harris boards. In America it became the lodge chart, shaped by Jeremy Cross’s 1819 True Masonic Chart.

This guide begins with the eighteenth-century Tyler drawing the lodge in chalk and the new Brother washing it away. It follows the floorcloths and the painted panels to the English designers Cole, Bowring and Harris, whose 1845 boards still serve the Emulation Lodge of Improvement. It also explains why the tracing board and the trestle board are different emblems. It then turns to America: locally painted cloths, Cross’s chart engraved by Amos Doolittle, printed charts and lantern slides. The practical half covers how to read a board, how to give a short chart lecture, a year-long education plan built around the charts, and how to care for an old chart your lodge may own.