History of Prince Hall
Official site of St. Lucia Tourist Board
Prince Hall, a name not a title, is famous for being the first black Grand Master of a Masonic Lodge. Though many arguments have been made against the validity of his claim to Masonry because of his wrongfully alleged enslavement in the US, most of these arguments have been without the proper foundation, and have their roots instead steeped in bigotry.
Some have criticized Masonry as "segregated" due to the Prince Hall Lodges, but this is a ridiculous claim, since there are many black Masons in non-Prince Hall Lodges, and this argument therefore displays a fundamental ignorance of Masonic history
This digression is justifiable because, when black Masonry became the subject of bitter controversy, its opponents used the alleged "Free Born" qualification, charging that Prince Hall's was invalid and therefore by extension, Prince Hall Masonry. The fact that Prince Hall was made a Mason under the Irish Constitution which holds true to the basic tenets of Masonry that to be a Mason you MUST be “ a MAN, FREEBORN, of Lawful Age AND well recommended”, qualities fully attributable to PRINCE HALL as will be discussed below, were totally ignored by those attempting to teardown Prince Hall and Black Masonry.
Prince Hall was free born in British West Indies (Barbados to be precise) on or about September 12, 1748. His father, Thomas Prince Hall, was an Englishman and his mother a free colored woman of French extraction. In 1765, at age 17, 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.
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".
Finally on March 2, 1784, Prince Hall petitioned the Grand Lodge of England, through Worshipful Master William Moody of Brotherly Love Lodge #55 of London, 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 (signatory to the Declaration of Independence), and master of the Neptune, under its authority African Lodge No. 459 was organized one week later, May 6, 1787. H.R.H., the Prince of Wales, appointed Prince Hall a Provincial Grand Master in 1791.
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.
Prince Hall died in 1807 at the age of 72. A year later, his lodge honored him by changing its name to Prince Hall Grand Lodge. As a Memorial to Prince Hall, by an act of the General Assembly of the Craft in 1808, African Grand Lodge of North America was changed and would be called the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.
Today, the Prince Hall fraternity has over 4,500 lodges worldwide, forming 45 independent jurisdictions with a membership of over 300,000 masons. The most recent of which is the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Caribbean and Jurisdiction.
Caribbean Grand Lodge List of Officers Favorite Web Links History of Prince Hall What's New! Rita G OES Chapter Anti-Masonry
Page last updated: March 19, 2004
Webmaster: Dixon A. Phillips
Mount Hermon Lodge #9
Email: phillid2@hotmail.com
Mail: P.O. Box 383
Castries, St. Lucia W.I.