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Auction: 348 - Orders, Decorations, and Medals e-Auction
Lot: 154

United States. Knights of Pythias Uniform Rank Ceremonial Sword. Virginia, early 20th Century. Pettibone Manufacturing Co., Cincinnati. 30" blade decorated with various Pythian images and owner's name emblazoned: U.S.G. PATTERSON, leather grip with gilt wire wrap. Steel scabbard with three brass fittings -- Pythian motto "FCB" above Samson destroying enemy's temple, tools and emblems, and double-headed ax with ornaments.

Ulysses S. Grant Patterson (born 1867 in Franklin County, VA) was an African-American cornet-player and vocalist of note. Per the 1915 "Who's Who of the Colored Race", he taught music at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, the Virginia Theological Seminary and College, and at other institutes. He traveled with the Cleveland Haverly Minstrels in 1896 and the A.G. Fields Company in 1897-1898, and was the musical director of the Court Street Baptist Church. Patterson was assistant general inspector, uniform rank and vice-grand chancellor in the Knights of Pythias of Virginia, a 32nd Degree Mason, Shriner, past W.C. of the Grand Court of Virginia, and supreme scribe of the Royal Order of Moses.
Very Fine.

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