Masonic Medal
Avery Parr
An institution that played a large part in shaping and adding to the experience of Blacks in North America was Prince Hall Freemasonry. Freemasonry, is the oldest and largest fraternity in the world. Members are encouraged to live by the pillars of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. The goal of Freemasons is to build a world where justice, equality, and compassion are prominent.[1] Opportunities for Freemasons includes personal development, character building, and the potential ability of obtaining leadership capacities. Prince Hall Freemasonry more specifically is a sector of North American Freemasonry founded by Prince Hall in 1784 and is known as an organization predominately comprised of African Americans. [2]
It can be argued that the history of Black North America would be unable to be accurately represented if this organization was not mentioned to the importance it played in the black community. The sense of purpose and belonging and opportunity for growth and leadership that stemmed from Prince Hall Freemasonry provided solace from the issues that plagued the black community a short period after emancipation relating to social and political conflict.[3] For it was through Prince Hall Freemasonry, an organization dedicated to people of colour, in which men could be reborn free and emerge as leaders and role models, a stark difference to the inferior positions as slave’s black men once held. Now not only being part of an organization that was for black people but also holding positions of power and being recognized within it was a monumental step forward for people of colour.[4]
An item that demonstrates the societal shift pertaining to people of color and their newfound power and rights post emancipation is my artifact I have chosen to examine, a Prince Hall Freemasonry Grand Master medal. This item is an excellent primary visual source although it provides little information that I can gather from it for my topic. The medal itself is very old and tarnished and therefore it is unattainable to see the writing on the medal of who it exactly belonged to or what it says. However, it is known that it was a medal for a Grand Master in the St. John’s Lodge No. 9 in Chatham Kent Ontario at some point in time. The ornate and intricate detail and the symbolism of a medal is a visual way for whoever wore it to demonstrate power. We can see that Grand Masters must have been people of importance and respect based on the fact that the item was a medal only worn as such by people in this high a position. Upon further contact with the Chatham Kent Historical Society where the medal is housed, the provenance of the medal was unknown. In order to gather more information on the history and relevance of the medal I reached out to the direct source it once came from, the Freemasons of St. John’s Lodge No. 9 in Chatham Kent Ontario. Although no further information about the particular artifact was unearthed, through the first-hand accounts of the Freemasons at St. John’s Lodge No. 9 and my own background research, I was able to discover the significance and relevance of Prince Hall Freemasonry for the black community on a local and broader scope and piece together my own story of the history behind the Grand Master medal. [5]
The birth of Prince Hall Freemasonry in Canada coincided with the mass migration of hundreds of Blacks to Canada after the Emancipation Act of 1833 had been passed by Great Britain all in search of a similar goal; freedom. During the 1830’s and 40’s, hundreds of slaves had managed to escape the North into States that boarded slave States. With the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 (aka The Bloodhound Law) blacks were fearful in their current location of being captured and taken back into slavery, this resulted in them moving further north and eventually into Canada. With them they brought their faith, which was Methodist, and Freemasonry.[6]
Through this mass migration a large institution had been established for people of colour; Prince Hall Freemasonry, this organization offered freedom, security and safety to those who could reach them in Canada. Prince Hall Freemasonry was unique in the sense that this was finally an organization composed mostly of and for people of colour.[7] The freedom of association that was granted to blacks after being freemen had manifested into a community of likeminded men with similar backgrounds and experiences in which they could relate to each other and find empowerment through their difficult pasts to create opportunities of empowerment in their new lives post emancipation.[8] In the span of 10 years from 1850-1860 the number of migration people would reach the thousand.[9] It was during these years that the emergence of great black leadership began to flourish. People of colour had finally been granted their freedom and they no longer would be supressed to the inferior position as a slave they had known for so long. People of colour took action when the emancipation act happened and either through birth or self-emancipation sought freedom. Those who were already free encouraged others to break free from the chain that no longer bound them to their past and head North for freedom. Leaders were produced in this process who often ran similar areas of leadership such as the church, lodges and underground railroad. Well-known names in the Masonic community born from this period and transition were Dr. Martin Delany, Rev. Thomas Stringer, Abraham D. Shadd, Rev. Thomas Kinnard, Rev. Benjamin Stewart.
The National Compact Grand Lodge through its New Jersey sector was the first to establish Prince Hall Masonry in Canada. 1851 Grand Master George Shreve of the New Jersey lodge gave permission to Brother T.C. Harnsley to open a lodge in Hamilton Canada for Master Masons. The Lodge would be the first one in Canada and would be named Mount Olive Lodge. Victoria lodge #2 in St. Catherines was established as a lodge in 1854 followed by lodge #3 Olive Branch lodge in Windsor.[10]
August 1856, the three individual lodges met in Hamilton and combined to create the Widow’s Son Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. Rev. Benjamin F. Stewart member of Mount Olive Lodge #1 was elected the first Grand Master of Prince Hall Masons in Canada. Over the course of 15 years the Widow’s Son Grand Lodge along with three other American Lodges set up lodges across all of Canada West including Toronto, Owen Sound, London, Chatham, Dresden, Buxton and Windsor all while maintaining relationship with the Grand Mother Lodges. However, will all the new lodges in Ontario being built, the increase in Lodges was happening at an alarming rate and action had to be taken to provide order and structure for too many people. In 1871, in order to solve the issue of too many free-standing Lodges in Ontario, all of the Lodges of Prince Hall Masons of Ontario united to form the Grand Lodge of the Province of Ontario. Again Rev. Benjamin F. Stewart was elected as Grand Master. After time and name changes the name was finalized to “The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the Province of Ontario and Jurisdiction”. While some viewed the merge of Prince Hall Masons as a step forward for Masonic freedom, others saw this as an opportunity for people to come together to focus on the similar goal of creating a better life of all Black Canadians. The road to this common goal would be paved with hardships and setbacks but at the turn of the century prove to be worth it with small but important steps forward having been made.[11]
Rev. Benjamin Stewart was an influential person of colour who was a member and the first Grand Master in the Prince Hall Freemasons, he was known for his leadership skills in the church as well as the lodge. He would have been granted the highest honor and respect and would have worn a medal similar to the artifact medal I have been researching. Benjamin F. Stewart was born in New Jersey in 1812 into a time of political and racial movements in the United States pertaining to millions of black people that were enslaved whilst other sought freedom. While the rest of the United States may have kept the traditional approach to black slavery in use, New Jersey was a state that had progressed forward in the approach to abolishing slavery to point that slavery almost ceased to exist there. This was the environment Benjamin Stewart was accustomed to growing up in. Church, abolitionists and the Freemason were what shaped his ideologies and belief system into adulthood. At the time of the creation of St. John’s Lodge No. 8 in New Jersey in 1845, Benjamin Stewart was a well-known minister in the A.M.E. church. There were many connection between the church and the lodges and there were many parallels that could be drawn in good leaders between the church and lodges. Taking on a leadership role in the church proved to be helpful when taking on leadership in the lodges and many members of the lodges first started out in the church, this was the case for him. Rev. Benjamin Stewart first moved to Canada with the mass migration that happened in the 1850’s. Benjamin moved to Hamilton in 1851 and joined the Mount Olive Lodge and was elected the first Grand Master as well as continuing his relations in the AME church as minister. Through this leadership and dedication, Benjamin Stewart had helped shape the history of Prince Hall Masonry in both the United States as well as Canada. [12]
Chatham Kent Ontario has been a place of significance for black history in Canada in a variety of realms. Pertaining to Prince Hall Freemasonry, the Masonic Lodge No. 9 that was established in Chatham enhanced the lives of the black community there providing them a place of belonging, rich in history of what lives could be like for black people post emancipation in Canada with the ability of freedom of association. Prince Hall Freemasonry, St. John’s Lodge No. 9 and the artifact medal worn by one of the Grand Masters there, acts as a reminder and a demonstration that still stands today of the political and racial changes that were made on a global scale that profoundly impacted the black lives of a small city in Southwestern Ontario and its black residents there.
Bibliography
Britannica Academic, s.v. “Freemasonry,” accessed December 4, 2018, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Freemasonry/35303.
Clegg, Robert I. Mackey’s Revised History of Freemasonry. Vol. 6. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley & Sons. 1921.
Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, Sr. 2006. Prince hall freemasonry: The other invisible institution of the black community. Ph.D. diss., University of North Texas, https://www-lib-uwo-ca.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/cgi-bin/ezpauthn.cgi?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/docview/305286860?accountid=15115 (accessed December 4, 2018).
Giggie, John Michael. After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875-1915. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.
“Masons – African Canadian Community” in “Windsor Mosaic.” Windsor-communites.org. Last modified 2018. http://www.windsor-communities.com/african-organ-masons.php
Masonic News Letter: M&T News: September 1990 “The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons Province of Ontario and Jurisdictions 1856-1990” – Chatham-Kent Historical Society
“Prince Hall — Black Freemason & Civil Rights Activist” in “Freedom’s Way.” Freedomsway.org. Last modified 2018. http://freedomsway.org/prince-hall-black-freemason-civil-rights-activist/
Prince Hall Masonry News Article Ontario 1852-1933 – Chatham-Kent Historical Society
Robbins, Arlie C. Prince Hall Masonry in Ontario, 1852-1933. Publisher Not Identified, 1980.
Sesay, Chernoh Momodu, Jr. 2006. Freemasons of color: Prince hall, revolutionary black boston, and the origins of black freemasonry, 1770–1807. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, https://www-lib-uwo-ca.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/cgi-bin/ezpauthn.cgi?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/docview/305295218?accountid=15115 (accessed December 4, 2018).
Worshipful Grand Master Medal – Chatham-Kent Historical Society
[1] “Masons – African Canadian Community” in “Windsor Mosaic.” Windsor-communites.org. Last modified 2018. http://www.windsor-communities.com/african-organ-masons.php
[2] Britannica Academic, s.v. “Freemasonry,” accessed December 4, 2018, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Freemasonry/35303.
[3] Clegg, Robert I. Mackey’s Revised History of Freemasonry. Vol. 6. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley & Sons. 1921.
[4] Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, Sr. 2006. Prince hall freemasonry: The other invisible institution of the black community. Ph.D. diss., University of North Texas, https://www-lib-uwo-ca.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/cgi-bin/ezpauthn.cgi?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/docview/305286860?accountid=15115 (accessed December 4, 2018).
[5] Worshipful Grand Master Medal – Chatham-Kent Historical Society
[6] Robbins, Arlie C. Prince Hall Masonry in Ontario, 1852-1933. Publisher Not Identified, 1980.
[7] “Prince Hall — Black Freemason & Civil Rights Activist” in “Freedom’s Way.” Freedomsway.org. Last modified 2018. http://freedomsway.org/prince-hall-black-freemason-civil-rights-activist/
[8] Giggie, John Michael. After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875-1915. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.
[9] Prince Hall Masonry News Article Ontario 1852-1933 – Chatham-Kent Historical Society
[10] Masonic News Letter: M&T News: September 1990 “The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons Province of Ontario and Jurisdictions 1856-1990” – Chatham-Kent Historical Society
[11] Sesay, Chernoh Momodu, Jr. 2006. Freemasons of color: Prince hall, revolutionary black boston, and the origins of black freemasonry, 1770–1807. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, https://www-lib-uwo-ca.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/cgi-bin/ezpauthn.cgi?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/docview/305295218?accountid=15115 (accessed December 4, 2018).
[12] Masonic News Letter: M&T News: September 1990 “The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons Province of Ontario and Jurisdictions 1856-1990” – Chatham-Kent Historical Society