Prince Hall
Born 1735, Unknown · Died December 4, 1807, Boston, Massachusetts · Army Lodge No. 441 (Irish Constitution, 38th Regiment of Foot), Boston
Abolitionist and founder of Prince Hall Freemasonry, the oldest Black Masonic tradition in the world.
The duty of a mason to a mason, and of charity and love to all mankind, as the work and image of the great God and the Father of the human race.
Contribution to History
Little is known of Prince Hall’s early life. He was born around 1735 and was a free man in Boston by 1770, working as a leather-dresser and caterer. On March 6, 1775, he and 15 other Black men were initiated by Lodge No. 441, an Irish military lodge attached to British troops in Boston, after Boston’s colonial lodges turned them away.
In 1784 the Grand Lodge of England issued a charter for African Lodge No. 459, the first Black Masonic lodge in the country. Hall also petitioned the Massachusetts legislature against slavery and the kidnapping of free Black people, and he ran a school for Black children in his own home.
Why It Matters Today
Prince Hall Freemasonry still exists today, with Grand Lodges across the country. His petitions for schooling and against slavery made him an early voice for civil rights. In 1797 he told his lodge:
Let us not be cast down under these and many other abuses we at present are laboring under,—for the darkest hour is just before the break of day.
Prince Hall, Charge to the African Lodge at Menotomy, June 24, 1797
The Masonic Thread
Hall faced daily insults on the streets of Boston and answered them with patience and persistence. He was refused, so he applied elsewhere and built the lodge he wanted to join. Anyone shut out can learn from that. The portrait shown here is a later, unattributed likeness; no portrait made in his lifetime survives.
Sources
- https://princehall.org/prince-hall-freemasonry/
- https://guides.loc.gov/prince-hall-freemasonry
- https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/hall_p/hall_p.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hall
- https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/1797-prince-hall-speaks-african-lodge-cambridge-massachusetts/
- https://www.ryanjflynn.com/portfolio-items/princehall/
- Portrait image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prince_hall_portrait.jpg (Public domain)
Life & Masonic Timeline
According to the site Grand Logde of British Culumbia and Yucon[2], the portrait is unattributed.[3], via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Source