Prince Hal
African Lodge No. 459
In 1799, Prince Hall, as Grand Master of the African Lodge in Boston, signed a document certifying that Richard P. G. Wright was a Master Mason.
In 1784, Prince Hall petitioned the Grand Lodge of England, the premier (or mother) grand lodge of the world, for a warrant, or charter, to become a “regular masonic lodge.”
On September 29, 1784, the Grand Lodge of England granted a charter to Prince Hall and his associates for African Lodge #459. They formally began work as a “regular” Masonic lodge on May 6, 1787, “with all the rights and privileges” of any Masonic lodge in the world.
Since African Lodge #459 was the only lodge in America to receive her charter directly from England, a close relationship developed between Prince Hall and the Grand Lodge of England. In 1791, he was appointed a Provincial Grand Master, and African Lodge #459 became a “mother” lodge.
In 1797 Prince Hall organized lodges in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island under the #459 Charter, and the march of Prince Hall lodges had begun. Today there are over 5,000 Prince Hall lodges with forty-seven grand lodges that can trace their origin to African Lodge #459, Boston, Mass. In these organizations are over 300,000 Master Masons. There are also adoptive, appendant, and affiliated bodies including all houses in the Scottish Rite, the York Rite, the Order of the Eastern Star, and the Shriners.
Prince Hall died on December 4, 1807, after serving thirty-one years as Worshipful Master of the African Lodge. One year later (December 1808) the brethren of the African Lodges of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, in a General Assembly of the Craft held in Boston, organized the African Grand Lodge with Most Worshipful Brother Nero Prince as the Grand Master.
In memory and out of respect of Most Worshipful Brother Prince Hall, African Grand Lodge changed its name to Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Jurisdiction of Massachusetts, in 1847 and soon after formed its first three Massachusetts lodges since African Lodge was formed in 1776: Union #2 (February 11, 1848), Rising Sons of St. John #3 (February 17, 1848) and Celestial #4 (April 24, 1848).
The significance of the “regular” organizing of African Lodge #459 is evidenced today by the Grand Lodge of England adding African Lodge #459 to the legal origins of grand lodges seeking recognition. Previously a grand lodge had to trace its lineage to the Grand Lodges of England, Scotland or Ireland. Now England had added African Lodge #459 to that mix.