African Grand Lodge of Modern Masons of Massachusetts Organized with Only one Lodge on the 24th of June 1791 at Boston Mass.
The first Grand Lodge of Colored Masons in the State of Mass. was named African Grand Lodge of Modern Masons of Mass. and it was organized with only one Lodge and the name of that Lodge was African Lodge No. 459 this occurred on the 24th of June 1791 at Boston Mass. See the circular of the proceedings of the organization of African Grand Lodge of Modern Mason of Mass. organized June the 24th 1791 at Boston Mass. and signed by Prince Hall Grand Master and Prince Taylor Grand Secretary of the African Grand Lodge of Modern Masons of Mass. See the printed proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Illinois in 1867. See the printed proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Iowa when it was organized in the year of 1881 when John Page was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Colored Masons of the State of Iowa in 1881.
See the circular and the Masonic proceedings issued by J. H. Hall Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey in the year of 1873. See the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee when Nelson McGavoc was Grand Master and Abraham Smith was Grand Secretary in the year of 1874. See the circular issued by the Grand Lodge of New York in 1874 when W. C. H. Curtis was Grand Master, and Albert Woodson was Grand Secretary. See the printed proceedings of the various sessions of the Grand Lodge of Mass. See the history of Freemasonry in the United States among Colored Men by J. N. Conna of Connecticut together with the Published statements of a number of other Grand Lodges and they all emphatically state and agree in language that is not uncertain, that the first Grand Lodge of Colored Masons organized in the State of Mass. was African Grand Lodge of Modern Masons which was organized with only one Lodge and that was on the 24th day of June 1791 at Boston Mass.
There cannot be any doubt by any Masonic scholar or student in this day or time nor there can be any uncertainty in the manner by the officers and members of any well regulated and lawful Grand Lodge of Freemasonry in the whole world, but that the establishing of African Grand Lodge of Modern Masons of Mass. on the 24th of June 1791 with only one Lodge but that it is a clandestine spurious and irregular body for it has been since the year of 1717 that well established Masonic law of Freemasonry that it requires not less that three warranted Lodges to organize a regular Grand Lodge. The Masonic authorities on that proposition both in this country and Europe are uninformed and no Grand Lodge has ever been recognized as being a legal Grand Lodge that has been organized with a less number than three warranted lodges.