Royal Arch Select Master Apron, 1818 Jeremy Ladd Cross (1783–1860), designer Amos Doolittle (1754–1832), engraver New Haven, Connecticut Gift of John Boyce, 2005.017.8

Masonic speaker and author Jeremy Ladd Cross traveled throughout New England to lecture to Masonic lodges. He also sold books and aprons to the Masonic groups he visited. Cross designed this apron in conjunction with engraver and Mason Amos Doolittle. They undertook it as a joint venture in which they, as Cross recorded in his diary, “agreed to do and go halves in the expn & profit.“ Records suggest that Doolittle’s daughter, Sarah (1804-1863) may have had a hand in making up the aprons that her father printed.