Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Charles L. Hofmann, Masonic District Deputy Grand Master
ca. 1905
Joseph Huebner
USA: New Jersey, Rutherford
Photograph on paper mounted on card
Overall: 9"h x 6"w
Gift of Jacques Noel Jacobsen, Jr.
91.030.3

Three-quarter length portrait of man; black and white photograph showing a man wearing top hat, jewel, and apron; white moustache and hair. Impressed on cardstock paper below lower PL corner of photo, "Huebner / RUTHERFORD, N.J.". On reverse, handwritten in pencil, "Charles L. Hofmann, / Rutherford, N.J. / 1905 / W.M. Boiling Spring (a square) 152 N.J ./ D.D.G.M. / 45.00 / 86.264 / S."

Charles L. Hofmann (b. 1846) came to the United States from Germany as a teenager. He later owned the Hofmann House, a restaurant in Rutherford, New Jersey. For this portrait, commissioned in the early 1900s, Hofmann donned a suit, an understated apron, a top hat, and a jewel indicating his status as a District Deputy Grand Master. Raised at Boiling Spring Lodge No. 152 in 1883, Hofmann served as Master of his lodge in 1888.