Abolitionist, Revolutionary War Soldier & Founder of 1st Black Masonic Lodge
Prince Hall: The West End Museum
"Prince Hall was a leader in Boston’s free black community on the North Slope and Copp’s Hill. He was one of the United States’ most vocal early abolitionist voices and a founder of Prince Hall Freemasonry. Hall advocated for black education and equality, running a school and making a wide array of arguments in service of bringing the fundamental promises of the Revolution to all Americans." MORE
Freemasonry includes various fraternal organizations that trace their origins to 14th century guilds of stonemasons in Scotland and England. Today, Freemasonry is the oldest fraternity in the world. In 1784, Boston’s Prince Hall was the founder of the first order of African-descended Masons. Today there are approximately 4,500 Prince Hall Masonic lodges around the world, including the original one, now in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Prince Hall's 1788 petition against kidnapping of Black freemen
"To the honourable the senate and house of representatives of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, in general court assembled, on the 27th February, 1788. The petition of a great number of blacks, freemen of said commonwealth, humbly showeth,That your petitioners are justly alarmed at the inhuman and cruel treatment that three of our brethren, free citizens of the town of Boston, lately received. A Captain, under pretence that hs vessel was in distress on an island below in this harbour, having gotten them on board, put them in irons, and carried them off from their wives and children, to be sold for slaves; this being the unhappy state of these poor men, what can your petitioners expect but to be treated in the same manner by the same sort of men?" — Prince Hall. (Massachusetts Historical Society)
"Hall was born between 1735 and 1738. His place of birth and parents are also unclear. Hall mentioned in his writings that New England was his homeland. The Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in its Proceedings of 1906, opted for 1738, relying on a letter from Reverend Jeremy Belknap, a founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Hall's birthday is traditionally celebrated on September 14.
Hall's early years are unclear. Historian Charles H. Wesley theorized that by age 11, Hall was enslaved (or in service) to Boston tanner William Hall, and by 1770 was a free, literate man and had been always accounted as a free man. It was through William Hall that Prince learned how to process and dress leather. Inside Prince Hall author and historian David L. Gray states that he was unable to find an official historical record of the manumission. Hall was able to read and write, and may have been self-taught, or may have had assistance." MORE
SOURCES
Prince Hall: The West End Museum
Prince Hall Life and Legacy Charles H. Wesley
Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic, 1760-1830 James Sidbury
Inside Prince Hall David L. Gray and Tony Pope