Our membership certificates are being prepared and will be presented at a later date.  Our good friends and Prince Hall Brethren, R.W. Raymond T. Coleman, Grand Historian, and Brother Red T. Mitchell, Jr. witnessed the ceremony.

I am not certain of the precedent, but I now have two lambskin aprons that will accompany my mortal remains when what I hope is a far-off eventual date, I am invested in the Celestial Lodge.

Earl and I proudly followed the course previously taken by another of our favorite Masons, Noble (R.W.) Ernest "Rollo" Pearlstein, as well as some other members of our Grand Lodge of Massachusetts A.F. & A.M., who have been honored with Prince Hall memberships.

The following week we accepted positions on the City of Cambridge Prince Hall Monument Committee (chaired by Mayor E. Denise Simmons), the City Council having authorized that a suitable memorial proclaiming Prince Hall a Patriot and Founding Father of the Nation, be placed in the Revolutionary War Circle, at the place where the immortal Washington took Command of the Continental Army on Cambridge Common.  The projected cost of the monument has been set at approximately $150,000.

For those unfamiliar with the history of Prince Hall, the following is a sketch of his notable accomplishments, adapted from the pamphlet of Prince Hall Grand Lodge Historian R.W. Raymond T. Coleman. Material in quotes appears verbatim.  Comments in parenthesis and italics are mine.

Our subject (there were six Prince Hall's residing during the period being considered in or near Boston simultaneously) was born circa 1735 in either Britain or Africa (he referred to England as "home", but always used the term "African" to describe himself).  He arrived in the Massachusetts Colony at about the age of 12 years.  Because he was of African discent (a period and local distinction where those of his race were also known as Negroes, Blacks, and Mulattoes), the majority of whom were enslaved in the Colony, he sought and received from his employer, a wealthy leather dresser named William Hall, manumission papers on April 9, 1770, stating ".. he is no longer reckoned a slave, but has been always accounted a freeman by us."  Shortly thereafter, Mr. Hall set his former servant / apprentice Prince Hall up as an independent leather dresser, owning his own business in Downtown Boston.  (William Hall is known as the first president of the Irish Charitable Association that took care of Irish immigrants when they arrived here, until they were gainfully employed.  The society is still active today.)

No image exists of Prince Hall, but his good friend, Rev. William Bentley of Salem said he had the appearance of one who came from African royalty.  By the advent of the American Revolution he was accorded by the descendants of Africa who resided in the Colony (and perhaps the entire New England Region) the stature of primary leader and spokesman.  His extant writings, though he was a tradesperson, bespeak that he was a man of letters and extensive learning.

He existed in a time of impending change.  The Age of Reason, a 17^th - 18^th Century shift of traditional European thought (think of interrelated systems, all threads in the fabric of the earth/universe), was succeeded by the 18^th - 19^th Century Age of Enlightenment (discourse on questioning the authority of the nobility and religious institutions in relation to their adverse impact on society, while focusing on the natural rights of all mankind).  These shifts in perspective brought forth new institutions and fraternal orders, such as Speculative Masonry, which used the tools and teachings of an ancient (Operative) craft to impart lessons of morality, social behavior, and leadership, providing the many what from their foundation in Pharaonic Egypt had only been available to the select.  Here it was sometimes possible for the aristocratic powerful and wealthy to meet with those less fortunate (a growing new elite of scientists, intellectuals, artists, economists, civil servants, etc.) in Brotherhood.  This was an emerging and completely new milieu.

In terms of Masonry (Speculative rather than Operative), the Grand Lodge of England being the first such formed was in 1717, and chartered the first Grand Lodge in the American Provincial Colonies at Massachusetts in 1733.  The Grand Lodge of Ireland was next in 1725.  The Grand Lodge of Scotland being formed in 1736 chartered its own Massachusetts Grand Lodge in 1769, led by Patriot Dr. Joseph Warren, in which John Hancock and Paul Revere were also members.   By 1775, the powerful Tory Faction, Loyalists to King George III, dominated the Grand Masonic Lodge at Boston and its appended Lodges along the colony's wealthy coastline.

It occurred to Prince Hall, that he being a freeman and businessman, along with a small group of his friends, were he and they to become Masons, it might grant them access to that powerful political clique that controlled the affairs of the Colony, and thereby help their people.  He applied to the Boston Lodges and was rejected.  (Many of whose members who owned slaves saw his admittance as problematical).

On Monday, March 6, 1775, at Castle William (present day Fort Independence) then situated in Boston Harbor, Prince Hall and fourteen of his companions took the three degrees that raised them to the sublime degree of Master Mason.  The degrees were bestowed upon Prince Hall and his companions by the Masonic rank and file of the 38^th Regiment of Foot of Lodge #441, Chartered by the Irish Grand Lodge where the Regiment had been recruited.  (At this time there were other Black Masons under the British Flag, but these were the first made in America).

When the Regiment evacuated Boston in 1776, it left our subject and his friends without a Lodge.  Prince Hall acted quickly and demanded from the Master of Lodge 441 a "permit" to meet as a Lodge and bury their dead "in manner and Form."  Having received the permit, he formed African Lodge #1, on May 3, 1776.

"It was at this point that Hall approached the people of Boston with a new power, that of being the Worshipful Master of a Lodge of Freemasons.  They would now at least listen to him.....

"After the organization of African Lodge #1, it didn't take Prince Hall very long to launch a meaningful attack on the slave trade, slavery, and the non-education of Black children.

            "-July 3^rd, 1775, Prince Hall petitioned George Washington to permit Blacks to

            enlist in the Army."  (Washington at first refused but later acceded, permitting only

            Black freemen to serve in the ranks.  Hall's request was not fully realized until 1948,

            when President Harry Truman (a former Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri),

by proclamation, ordered the Armed Forces of the United States to thereafter be fully

integrated).

"-On January 13, 1777, Prince Hall petitioned the legislature to free all slaves

in Massachusetts."  (Three years later, the state accepted that its Constitution of

1780 effectively abolished slavery.)

"-September 29, 1784, England granted a Charter to African Lodge #459."

(Excluded by the Provincial Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, they had no

choice but to apply to the Premier Grand Lodge of England.)

"-November 26, 1786 Prince Hall offered Gov. Bowdoin the services of African

Lodge to help keep the peace during Shay's Rebellion."  (This was an armed farmers'

rebellion in Central and Western Massachusetts in protest of high taxes and crushing debt

which resulted from money still owed by the Commonwealth following the Revolutionary

War.  Daniel Shay led the rebellion, which was decisively defeated by the Massachusetts

Militia.  Two of Shay's men were hanged in 1787, but the others, including Shay, were

pardoned.)

"-January 4, 1778, Prince Hall petitioned the legislature to support a back to

Africa movement."  (The American Colonization Society, founded circa 1811-20 by

Quakers and a wealthy Black American Freedman, Paul Cuffee, returned over

13,000 former slaves to their ancestral homeland.  In 1847, Liberia was set aside

as a free state to be colonized by those returning from the United States.

Overwhelmingly, however, freed slaves whose families had been taken from

Africa many generations before, chose to remain in America when they gained

their freedom.)

"-October 17, 1787, Prince Hall petitioned the legislature for the education of Black

children."  (Believing wholeheartedly in the power of education Prince Hall had taught a

number of free Blacks how to read and write one at a time.  Exasperated by that slow

process, he set upon setting up a school for Black children, which became a reality

in 1808 at Boston's(Baptist) African Meeting House.  In 1835 the segregated Abiel Smith

School was opened by the City of Boston.  Desegregation of the schools did not take

place until after 1849 following spirited protests by the affected parents).

"-February 27, 1788, Prince Hall petitioned the Legislature for the return of kidnapped

Black Seaman."  (Slave traders were stopping ships and removing freed Black sailors,

which they then sold back into slavery where the practice was still allowed.)

This is by no means all that Prince Hall accomplished in this period.  It is presented to provide some conception of the energy and leadership of this great man.

Recognizing Prince Hall's unique role before, during, and after the Revolutionary War in seeking reconciliation and true Brotherhood among all peoples of these United States, and his impact upon important institutions such as the military and free public color-blind education of all children, the City of Cambridge has authorized the raising of a monument in his memory to be situated on the most sacred and hallowed of its ground, that of the Cambridge Common where the Armed Forces of the U.S. first stood.  The site of that proposed monument was dedicated on Saturday, September 13, 2008.  In attendance was the Mayor of Cambridge, E. Denise Simmons, Councilman Sam Seidl, State Representative Byron Rushing (who delivered the keynote address), Most Worshipful Brother Leslie A. Lewis of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge A. & F.M., Jurisdiction of Massachusetts (who delivered an address, followed by R.W. Raymond Coleman, Prince Hall Grand Lodge Historian).  Also in attendance and observing were other Masonic notables and members of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M., including Past Junior Grand Warden Ernest A. Pearlstein, past-R.W. Earl W. Cole, Jr. of the 13^th Masonic District, Wor. Robert Bolcome III, Master of the Harvard Lodge, Wor. Wayne H. Livermore, Master, Wor. Bruce Newman, Secretary, Wor. Marty Samuels, and Brother Jeff Beatty of the Major General Henry Knox Lodge, and finally, Captain Harry G. Orcutt of the Aleppo Shrine Minutemen.  I apologize to anyone who may have been left out.

Now comes the fundraising to pay for the monument.  I am certain that Masonry will contribute the largest share of the $150,000 estimated to be needed.  After having spoken to Illustrious Stephen G. Eriksen, and having secured his OK, I will propose at the next Heads of Unit Meeting (October 1^st), that an Aleppo Prince Hall Fund be created, open to all Nobles, and that each of the 20+ Units of our Shrine Center pledge and raise a minimum of one hundred ($100) per Unit.

 

Wor. Harry G. Orcutt, M.W. Leslie A. Lewis,

 R.W. Earl W. Cole Jr. at the Prince Hall Induction Ceremony

 

 

 

M.W. Leslie A. Lewis, Prince Hall Grand Lodge A. & F.M.,

speaking at Cambridge Common Site Dedication for

Prince Hall Monument, 9-13-08.  Behind M.W. Lewis,

From L. to R., Councilor Sam Seidl, State Rep.

Byron Rushing, Mayor E. Denise Simmons, R.W.

Raymond Coleman (Historian), and Kia Mellet Clary,

Cambridge High School Student Vocalist.

 

Site Dedication L. to R., R.W. Raymond Coleman,

Prince Hall Grand Lodge Historian, Captain Harry G. Orcutt,

Aleppo Shrine Minutemen, Past-Junior Grand Warden Ernest

T. Mitchell, Jr., Mayor E. Denise Simmons, past-R.W. Earl

W. Cole, Jr. (13^th District), and M.W. Brother Leslie A.

Lewis, Massachusetts Prince Hall Grand Lodge, A. & F.M.

Minutemen News

by Captain Harry G. Orcutt

 

3^rd Article