Black Freemasonry began when Prince Hall
and fourteen other free black men were
initiated into Lodge No. 441, on
March 6, 1775. The Master of the Lodge was Sergeant
John Batt.
When the British Army
left Boston in 1776, this Lodge, No 441, granted
Prince Hall and his brethren
authority to meet as African Lodge #1 (Under Dispensation), to
go in procession on St. John's
Day, and as a Lodge to bury their dead; but they could not
confer degrees nor perform any
other Masonic "work". For nine years these brethren
assembled and enjoyed their
limited privileges as Masons. Finally on March 2, 1784,
Prince Hall petitioned the Grand
Lodge of England, through a Worshipful Master of a
subordinate Lodge in London
(William Moody of Brotherly Love Lodge No. 55) for a warrant
or charter.
The Warrant to African Lodge No. 459 of Boston is the most significant and
highly prized document known to the Prince Hall Mason Fraternity. Through it
our legitimacy is traced, and on it more than any other factor, our case
rests. It was granted on September 29, 1784, delivered in Boston on April
29, 1787 by Captain James Scott, brother-in-law of John Hancock and master
of the Neptune, under its authority African Lodge No. 459 was organized one
week later, May 6, 1787.
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