Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 338

Price Realized: $ 660
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
RARE PRINCE HALL MEDALLION (FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS.) MASONS. Prince Hall. 1748-1807. Jurisdiction. Small bronze medallion, 3cm in diameter; nice, even patina consistent with age; the face of this medal bears a likeness of Prince Hall around which is "FRDSP * MRLTY * BTHLY LVE. F. & A.M." ("Friendship * Morality * Brotherly Love. Free and Accepted Masons") The reverse bears a number of the classic mystical signs of the Masonic order: the "all-seeing eye," the square and compass, etc.. Np [Boston?, circa 1807]
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Additional Details

an exceedingly rare medallion, quite likely minted following the death of prince hall, founder and grand master of the original african lodge number 1. Prince Hall (1748-1807) was a free black and ardent abolitionist. The Masonic fraternity was extremely attractive to free blacks of the eighteenth century. Prince Hall and his followers saw Freemasonry as a platform where racial differences did not exist. The Masonic ideals greatly appealed to Hall, especially the beliefs in liberty, equality and peace. Prior to the American Revolutionary War, Prince Hall and fourteen other free black men petitioned for the admittance to the white Boston St. John's Lodge and were turned away. Some whites were irate at the audacity of blacks applying to be Masons. Because of the attitude of the colonial Masonries, Hall decided to look elsewhere, and on March 6, 1775, he and fifteen other free blacks were initiated into the Masonry by members of the Lodge No. 441 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, a military lodge attached to the 38th Foot (renamed "The 1st Staffordshire Regiment" in 1782). The Lodge was attached to the British forces stationed in Boston. Hall and the other freedmen founded African Lodge No. 1 with Prince Hall named as Grand Master.