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ABOUT
PRINCE HALL FREEMASONRY
Prince Hall is recognized as the Father
of Black Masonry in the United States. He made it possible for us to also be
recognized and enjoy all privileges of Free and Accepted Masonry.
Many rumors of the birth of Prince Hall have arisen. Few records and papers
have been found of him either in Barbados where it was rumored that he was born,
but no record of birth, by church or state, has been found there, and none in
Boston. All 11 countries of the day were searched and churches with baptismal
records were examined without a find of the name of Prince Hall.
One widely circulated rumor states that "Prince Hall was free born in British
West Indies. His father, Thomas Prince Hall, was an Englishman and his mother a
free colored woman of French extraction. In 1765 he worked his passage on a ship
to Boston, where he worked as a leather worker, a trade learned from his father.
Eight years later he had acquired real estate and was qualified to vote.
Religiously inclined, he later became a minister in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church with a charge in Cambridge." This account, paraphrased from the
generally discredited Grimshaw book of 1903, is suspect in many areas.
Black Freemasonry began when Prince Hall and fourteen other
free black men were initiated into Lodge No. 441, Irish Constitution, attached
to the 38th Regiment of Foot, British Army Garrisoned at Castle William (now
Fort Independence) Boston Harbor on March 6, 1775. The Master of the Lodge was
Sergeant John Batt. Along with Prince Hall, the other newly made masons were
Cyrus Johnson, Bueston Slinger, Prince Rees, John Canton, Peter Freeman,
Benjamin Tiler, Duff Ruform, Thomas Santerson, Prince Rayden, Cato Speain,
Boston Smith, Peter Best, Forten Howard and Richard Titley.
When the British Army left Boston in 1776, this Lodge, No 441, granted Prince
Hall and his brethren authority to meet as African Lodge #1 (Under
Dispensation), to go in procession on St. John's Day, and as a Lodge to bury
their dead; but they could not confer degrees nor perform any other Masonic
"work". For nine years these brethren, together with others who had received
their degrees elsewhere, assembled and enjoyed their limited privileges as
Masons. Thirty-three masons were listed on the rolls of African Lodge #1 on
January 14th, 1779. Finally on March 2, 1784, Prince Hall petitioned the Grand
Lodge of England, through a Worshipful Master of a subordinate Lodge in London
(William Moody of Brotherly Love Lodge No. 55) for a warrant or charter.
The Warrant to African Lodge No. 459 of Boston is the most significant and
highly prized document known to the Prince Hall Mason Fraternity. Through it our
legitimacy is traced, and on it more than any other factor, our case rests. It
was granted on September 29, 1784, delivered in Boston on April 29, 1787 by
Captain James Scott, brother-in-law of John Hancock and master of the Neptune,
under its authority African Lodge No. 459 was organized one week later, May 6,
1787.
Prince Hall was appointed a Provincial Grand Master in 1791 by H.R.H., the
Prince of Wales. The question of extending Masonry arose when Absalom Jones of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania appeared in Boston. He was an ordained Episcopal
priest and a mason who was interested in establishing a Masonic lodge in
Philadelphia. Under the authority of the charter of African Lodge #459, Prince
Hall established African Lodge #459 of Philadelphia on March 22, 1797 and Hiram
Lodge #3 in Providence, Rhode Island on June 25, 1797. African Lodge of Boston
became the "Mother Lodge" of the Prince Hall Family. It was typical for new
lodges to be established in this manner in those days. The African Grand Lodge
was not organized until 1808 when representatives of African Lodge #459 of
Boston, African Lodge #459 of Philadelphia and Hiram Lodge #3 of Providence met
in New York City.
Upon Prince Hall's death on December 4, 1807, Nero Prince became Master. When
Nero Prince sailed to Russia in 1808, George Middleton succeeded him. After
Middleton, Petrert Lew, Samuel H. Moody and then, John T. Hilton became Grand
Master. In 1827, Hilton recommended a Declaration of Independence from the
English Grand Lodge.
In 1869 a fire destroyed Massachusetts' Grand Lodge headquarters and a number
of its priceless records. The charter in its metal tube was in the Grand Lodge
chest. The tube saved the charter from the flames, but the intense heat charred
the paper. It was at this time that Grand Master S.T. Kendall crawled into the
burning building and in peril of his life, saved the charter from complete
destruction. Thus a Grand Master's devotion and heroism further consecrated this
parchment to us, and added a further detail to its already interesting history.
The original Charter No. 459 has long since been made secure between heavy plate
glass and is kept in a fire-proof vault in a downtown Boston bank.
Today, the Prince Hall fraternity has over 4,500 lodges worldwide, forming 45
independent jurisdictions with a membership of over 300,000 masons.
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