Age of Armor

April 13, 2005

Does Bill MacMillan ever wish that he was living back in the days of chivalry, lopping off heads and jousting with his foes in a steel suit?
Alas, it’s a question we forget to ask of the exhibit preparer and conservator of a collection of armor and weapons from the Higgins Armory Museum in Wooster, Massachussetts. He looks peaceful enough, but who knows?
Last week, MacMillan was busy installing a new “Age of Armor” exhibit at the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City, which is hosting a display of seven suits of 16th and 17th century armor as well as many helmets and weapons through September 25.
The exhibit is on a 17-city tour across the country. “It’s part of the largest private collection of arms and armor in the western hemisphere,” MacMillan says.
He adds that the armor was the pride of museum founder and industrialist John Higgins whose heyday was in the early 20th century. “He ran a pressed steel company and had an interest in the history of steel,” MacMillan says. “He amassed armor and weapons from antiquity to modern pieces. Today, the museum tries to get a sample from every era of armor’s creation.”
What are the exhibit’s greatest hits (no pun intended)?
“Everybody likes the older pieces,” MacMillan says. “A Corinthian helmet or a bronze sword makes them think of gladiators and the Greek and Roman times.”
There’s a story behind every piece of armor here, some of which are creased with sword blows or dented by musket fire. Hundreds of years ago, the creation of armor represented the highest level of technology and a suit could take anywhere from a month to more than a year to create, depending upon the amount of care and the exuberance of steel etching involved.
“A lot of money went into these suits,” MacMillan notes. “Purchasing a suit of armor was on the level of buying a sports car or a modest house today. They wore them for military purposes, ceremony, sport and combat.”
MacMillan’s career got launched on a whim. “I got dragged in purely by accident,” he says. “I was at an art gallery and went to help install an armor exhibit and ended up doing this for a living.”
Today, he travels to five-six cities per year, setting up the intricate armor, which has a touch of fragility after bearing witness to the centuries. The Northern Michigan show offers a bit of respite in his schedule because the Dennos has booked the exhibit for two of its normal periods.
“We booked this show longer than normal,” Dennos Director Gene Jenneman says of the $35,000 exhibition. “We wanted to have it available for spring school tours as well as summer tourists.”
Jenneman says he’s been looking for an armor show for about five years now; it’s the kind of exhibit that draws crowds and a lot of interest. When he heard that the Higgins Armory Museum was offering a traveling exhibit, it was a steel pipe cinch to bring it to Traverse City.