The Sovereign Grand Commander is the presiding officer of a Supreme Council and the head of the Scottish Rite in its jurisdiction. In the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, the oldest Supreme Council in the world, the office has existed since 1801 and has been held by only a small number of men, some of them for decades. The Grand Commander wears a purple cap.
Purple Cap
The office
The Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction consists of no more than 33 active members, the Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, and the Sovereign Grand Commander presides over them. He leads the Rite across the whole Jurisdiction, appoints the Deputies who head Orients without an active member, and his approval is part of the election of new 33° Masons. The Council’s headquarters, the House of the Temple at 1733 Sixteenth Street NW in Washington, D.C., was completed in 1915; the remains of Albert Pike rest there.
Notable Grand Commanders
- John Mitchell, a former Deputy Quartermaster General of the Continental Army, was the first Sovereign Grand Commander (1802–1816).
- Frederick Dalcho, the first Lieutenant Grand Commander, succeeded him (1816–1822). The earliest known patent of the 33rd degree is his.
- Albert Pike became Grand Commander in January 1859 and held the office for 32 years. He rewrote the rituals of the 4th to 32nd degrees and wrote Morals and Dogma.
- John H. Cowles equalled Pike’s 32-year tenure, the longest in the office’s history.
- James D. Cole has been Sovereign Grand Commander since 2019.
According to Wikipedia, 21 men have held the office since 1801. Other Supreme Councils have their own Grand Commanders; the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, for example, elected Walter F. Wheeler in 2023.
The cap and signature
The Grand Commander’s cap is the last of the eight official caps listed in the Supreme Council’s statutes. It is round and made of purple silk, circled by a band of a slightly darker purple trimmed with gold and decorated with laurel leaves and berries. A gold cord crosses the top, fixed at each side by a gold button embossed with a double-headed eagle, and the front carries a slanted purple three-barred cross with crosslets, sometimes called the Cross of Salem, edged in gold bullion wire.
The three-barred cross is the Grand Commander’s personal symbol. Mackey records that under the Southern Jurisdiction’s 1921 statutes he placed a cross with three cross-bars and small cross-bars at the ends before his signature, in violet ink, followed by a rayed triangle enclosing the number 33.
Sources:
– The Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., “Earliest known 33° patent” and “What is the significance of the Scottish Rite cap?” (official caps, Statutes Art. XIII §§15–22).
– Wikipedia, “Supreme Council, Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction, USA)” (Sovereign Grand Commanders; House of the Temple) and “Scottish Rite” (Albert Pike; Northern Jurisdiction).
– Albert G. Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, entries “Abbreviations” and “Characteristics” (signature symbols).
– Nashville Scottish Rite, “Scottish Rite Hats”: https://www.nashvillescottishrite.org/?p=84