Prince Hall Grand Lodge - Philadelphia PA
Posted by: 
Don.Morfe
N 40° 01.145 W 075° 08.934
18T E 487293 N 4429885
This Masonic lodge was named after Rev. Prince Hall, founder of Freemasonry among African-Americans. The first Grand Master of African Masonry was Absalom Jones, organizer in 1797 of Philadelphia's first lodge, the African Lodge of Free Masons.
Waymark Code: WM16Z9C
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 11/04/2022
Views: 0
From the website below in part:
"Prince Hall is recognized as the Father of Black Masonry 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 Jonbus, Bensten 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."
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