On Exhibition

Once in Every Three Years: The Triennial Meetings of the Society of the Cincinnati, 1784-2010

March 19, 2010 - October 30, 2010

It was springtime, 1783, and a young America was on the cusp of crisis. Officers and soldiers of the Continental Army were camped along the Hudson River in New York, anxiously awaiting word of a peace treaty. They had endured eight difficult years of war with the British, and most of them had not been paid for months. Rumor spread that if they were not paid for their services, the Revolutionary forces would march to Philadelphia to confront Congress. The result could have been a military dictatorship.

Crisis, however, was averted. Instead of insurrection, officers of the Continental Army, including Henry Knox, Baron von Steuben and George Washington, banded together to form a society that would provide democratic support for those who participated in the Revolutionary struggle – and a society that would honor the memory of the fight for American independence. On May 13, 1783, they established the Society of the Cincinnati, which takes its name from the Roman citizen-soldier Cincinnatus (c. 519-430 B.C.E.), who after victory on the battlefield, disbanded his army, resigned the dictatorship and returned to his farm.

The first general meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati convened in Philadelphia on May 4, 1784, and lasted two full weeks. With few exceptions, it continued to meet “at least once in every three years,” as mandated by the Society’s 1783 Institution.

With portraits, letters, photographs and other artifacts drawn exclusively from the Society of the Cincinnati’s museum and library collections, the exhibition Once in Every Three Years chronicles two centuries of Triennial Meetings. From a challenge to the Society’s basic foundation made by the first president general, George Washington, through decades of dwindling membership, and finally to a full and complete revival, the Society has held fast to the tradition of the Triennial and the mission of its founding fathers – to perpetuate the memory of the achievement of American independence. Some of the remarkable objects on display include Pierre L’Enfant’s original sketch of a medal proposed for the Society in 1783; portraits of several early presidents general of the Society, with George Washington, William Popham and Hamilton Fish among them; and letters from George Washington concerning the early controversy over the Society’s Institution. Image credits: (1) Watercolor sketch of the Society of the Cincinnati Eagle by George Turner, ca. 1787, from an early manuscript volume of Triennial proceedings. The Society of the Cincinnati Archives. (2) William Popham (1752-1847) by George Linen, 1844. Oil on canvas. Gift of William Wickham Hoffman, New York State Society of the Cincinnati, 1959. Elected president general in 1844 at age 92, Popham was the last veteran of the Revolution to hold the office.

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