Saiward Pharr

History 4000

14 April 2003

The American public’s opinion of The Freemasons has varied over time. Religion, temperance, and class are just a few of the variables in the making of public opinion of the Masons. The nineteenth century saw a surge of interest in secret societies across the nation, especially the Freemasons.1 The increased interest in Masonry lead to an increase in Mason membership, particularly during the second half of the century.2 The Freemasons attracted members from many sectors of the population, but new members were not always welcomed. As the century progressed, potential members of the Masons had to meet increasingly stringent standards to join.3 The change in Mason standards for admission was a function of the Masons’ new place in society as a middle-class organization, separate from, and tolerated by, organized religions and the general public. Class was not the only limitation for admission to the society; race was a factor as well. African Americans were denied admittance to the Freemasons until 1775, in Boston, fifteen black men were recognized by Irish Masons as fellow Masons.4 These men eventually formed the first African American Masonic lodge in America. This branch of the Masons was not accepted into the existing lodges, and to this day, African American lodges remain separate from the “mainstream” Masons in America. The social development of both black and white Masonic orders progressed along similar lines, existing as a middle-class organization in the nineteenth century.

The Freemasons began in England as a guild for stonemasons. Any information in addition to this is disputed among historians. Thus, exactly how the society of masons became the modern secret society is uncertain. However, it is known that Masonic lodges appeared in the American colonies not long after their founding. These lodges boasted some of the most prominent members of American society at the time, such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. At this point, the Masons were still predominantly an aristocratic organization that upheld the ideals of the Enlightenment, and only accepted white men.5 The lodges in colonial America were unorganized, often met in taverns, and inconsistent in performance of rituals. The disorder of the American Masons is most likely due to the fairly skeletal organization of the European Masons. Albert Pike changed all of this for the white Masons. By 1857 he had single handedly filled in the gaps of the rituals, making each ceremony elaborate, ornate, and uniform for all Masonic temples. His work was not accepted by the Order, however, until 1863 due to the Civil War. Pike’s work quickly raised membership for the Masons, and made the Masons the superior example for ritualistic societies in America.6

The rituals that the Masons adopted largely centered on death. According to Masonic belief, death provided the truth about humanity and God, and the recreation of death in ritual allowed a window into that truth. Initiations usually incurred a fake death, either of the initiate or of an icon. For the Masons, the funeral of a fellow Mason was the highest ritual of all. Actual death and the subsequent burial was the final degree for a Mason, and all degrees and ceremonies preceding were practice for the funeral and interment ceremonies.7 The Masonic funeral rights were so important and elaborate that they were known of in the general public. Obituary notices often note that the Masonic lodge buried the deceased. For example, Major P. M. Wells died in 1845, and the notice in the local paper notes his Masonic burial in addition to his exact age and survivers.8 Even earlier than this the public greeted the Masonic death ritual with complacency. Theoderick L. Smith was buried in 1840 “with the usual honors by the Masonic fraternity.”9 Upon Andrew Jackson’s death in 1845, the general public requested the Masons to participate in an honorary funeral service.10 This general awareness of the Masonic preoccupation with death and their elaborate funerals is indicative of the only true public knowledge of Masonic rituals. Few other mentions of the Masons are found in newspapers from the time.

The men mentioned above, buried in the 1840’s, held membership in the Masons after the society had become a middle-class institution, and better organized than during the colonial period. During the early nineteenth century, professionals and wealthy farmers began to flood the society. These members came from the newly emerging middle-class in America. Their appearance in the Masons corresponded with the Masons beginning to reform the standards of the Order. Meetings were moved from taverns into private lodges. By the time of the deaths mentioned above, no lodge allowed alcohol during meetings, and few allowed alcohol on the premises at all. Members began screening applicants more carefully, to discern “worthiness” of earning advancement within the society. Additionally, a stricter code of conduct was enforced for the existing members. The increasingly middle-class membership did not contest the shift of funds and time from liquor to intricate ceremonies. In all, as the Masons came to abandon aristocratic values in favor of more sedate middle-class values their political influence began to grow, as did their popularity.11

For the African Americans, the history of Masonry is a bit different. The history of black Masonry in America is solidly traced back to Boston, 1775. A group of fifteen free African Americans, led by the prominent free black Prince Hall, petitioned for membership with the first lodge chartered in America by the Grande Mother Lodge of England. They were denied membership. A group of Irish Masons, stationed in Boston with the British Army, later recognized the group of men as Masons. However, when the military left the city, the black masons again were denied admission to the lodge in Boston. Instead, they received a temporary charter to meet independently until word came from the Grand Mother Lodge in England. When the Grand Mother Lodge’s reply came on 29 September 1785, it was in the form of a permanent charter for a separate “African Lodge No. 459.”12 The charter is currently held in a Boston bank, and is the only original Masonic charter in the United States. In 1807, the Order changed its name to Prince Hall Freemasonry, upon the death of the leader of the black Masons.13

The free black community received Prince Hall Masonry readily, and the Order quickly spread. In New England several chapters were chartered by Prince Hall personally. Despite the death of the leader, the order continued to grow not only in number of members at previously established lodges, but also in number of lodges. Across the nation additional lodges were chartered. Some of these lodges could not legally meet due to state laws of the time. For example, the lodge chartered in 1850 in Louisville, Kentucky could not meet in that city on account of that state’s black codes. Instead, members traveled across state lines into Indiana to hold meetings.14 In Atlanta, the Prince Hall Masons chartered a lodge in 1865.15 Prince Hall Masonry also spread outside of the United States, reaching as far as Canada and the Caribbean. The growth of the Order increased tremendously after the Civil War, as African Americans were freed from slavery and given hope of political power. Despite the vast number of Prince Hall Masonic lodges, the white Masons rarely interacted with their Prince Hall brethren and repeatedly denied early appeals for merging of the two branches.16

From the beginning, black Masonry in America has been a middle-class organization. The founding members of the Order were middle-class free black men. Prince Hall was a well- known and vocal advocate of African American rights. Additionally, he was highly politically active, calling for both freed and enslaved blacks to fight for the removal of British control of the American colonies.17 As the founding example of a black Freemason, Hall set an impressive precedent.

The Prince Hall Masons, like their white brethren, set high standards for membership. The Investigatory Committee screened each potential member before acceptance. The questions asked by this committee peered deep into the personal lives of the applicants. Questions about the marital status and sex life, mental capabilities, morality, and sobriety were common. This committee ultimately bluntly asked pre-existing members if they would be ashamed to be bring the applicant into their home or into public. This intense battery of questions was intended to disqualify lower-class blacks from the Order, whose public and private behavior did not always meet the standards of the middle-class Masons.18 In addition to the Investigatory Committee, the fees necessary to become a Mason guaranteed the middle-class status of members. Masons often expressed the opinion that “cheap Masonry” was harmful to the Order, and that “to lower the fee is to lower the quality of the members.”19 The Prince Hall Masons started as a middle-class organization, and have zealously defended that status.

Community outreach is an important part of Prince Hall Masonry. Masons have a long and established history of involvement with multiple good-will organizations. Churches are the most prominent and long standing tradition. Prince Hall was a clergyman; the founders of the second Prince Hall lodge were the founders of the Negro Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Church. Masons were frequently regular attendees at churches, and often help official positions within the church. In additional to churches, the Prince Hall Masons support, and participate in, various other community aiding societies. The Smooth Ashlar Lodge in Atlanta proudly supported a school for orphans and furnished living quarters for elderly or ailing members of the chapter.20 In the twentieth century the community involvement expanded to include the donation of scholarships, which were awarded regardless of race.21 A member wrote about the local involvement of the Smooth Ashlar Lodge, “Our aim has been to teach, counsel, and advise, knowing that all things are possible to those who love God.”22 This dedication to positive involvement in the local community is a part of the middle-class nature of the Order. Though they have maintained a distance between members and African American society at large, that distance is not so great as to prevent Masons from helping those less fortunate, and excluded from Masonic membership.

Though the Prince Hall Masons have remained unmixed from the “mainstream” Masons in America, the two groups share more than a name. Both the white and black Masons uphold values common to the middle-class. These values are enforced in both societies by a thorough screening of applicants and strict expectations of member behavior. In both societies, this middle-class system is attributed to the larger society’s desire. The white Masons reformed their aristocratic ways to meet more conservative middle-class values in order to erase “the ‘merry Mason,’ whose drinking and debauchery had left the order vulnerable to public censure.”23 The Prince Hall Masons exist within a white dominated society. This has left them“acutely sensitive to what Caucasian Americans view as noble and ignoble. And to whites, bourgeois behavior is a moral imperative.”24 For the white Masons, the middle-class reality is expressed mainly through elaborate ceremonies and rituals. For Prince Hall Masons, community outreach marks middle-class values. Each of these, ceremony or outreach, inherently requires monetary allotment that the middle-classes feel most comfortable parting with. For the white Masons, the aristocracy spent excessive amounts of overindulgence, thus upon the middle-class dominance of Masonry the funding was diverted to elaborate ritual. This in turn attracted more middle-class members. For the Prince Hall Masons, the expense of community involvement comes from black middle-class members and is returned to the lower-class members of society, those who are excluded from Masonic membership. In each society, middle-class standing within society at large is highly valued, and a key to the acceptance within the secret society.

1. Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America, (New Haven, Yale UP 1989), 1.

2. Mark C. Carnes, 29.

3. Mark C. Carnes, 24.

4. Loretta J. Williams, Black Freemasonry and Middle-Class Realities. (Columbia, U of Missouri Press, 1980), 14.

5. William A. Muraskin, Middle-class Blacks in a White Society, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, U of California Press, 1975), 22-3.

6. Mark C. Carnes, 23, 134.

7. Mark C. Carnes, 54 -57.

8. Southern Banner, 2/6/1845, Page[3] Column[4]

9. Southern Banner, 1/18/1840, Page[3] Column[3]

10. Southern Banner, 6/26/1845, Page[3] Column[3]

11. Mark C. Carnes, 24-25.

12. Loretta J. Williams, 16.

13. Loretta J. Williams, 14 -17.

14. Loretta J. Williams, 42-43.

15. Centennial Anniversary 1865-1965. Prince Hall Masonic Temple, Atlanta, GA.

16. Loretta J. Williams, 44 -45.

17. Loretta J. Williams, 14.

18. William A. Muraskin, 43-47

19. William A. Muraskin, 48.

20. Centennial Anniversary, 13-14.

21. Centennial Anniversary, 37.

22. Centennial Anniversary, 42.

23. Mark C. Carnes, 25.

24. William A. Muraskin, 59.