CLANDESTINE, SPURIOUS AND UNLAWFUL NATIONAL COMPACT GRAND LODGE OF MASONS OF NORTH AMERICA THAT WAS ORGANIZED AT BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ON THE 24th OF JUNE, 1847.
For many years past a great deal has been said and written about the establishing of the Irregular and Illegitimate National Compact Grand Lodge of Masons that was organized without a shadow of Masonic power and authority in 1847 at Boston, Massachusetts and of all of the absurd and ridiculous ideas which have ever incorporated itself in the minds of any man who is a Mason there seems nothing so utterly weak and imbecile as the doctrine that is advocated by the followers and adherents of that Clandestine National Compact Grand Lodge which was founded upon everything that was irregular and clandestine and predicated upon fiction fables and falsehoods, these and nothing else.
The numerous statements that have been made and are being made now by the exponents of the National Compact Grand Lodge purporting to be genuine and historical, are solely unreliable and cunning inventions of their own devised for the purpose of misleading the people.
On the 24th of June, 1847, at Boston, Mass., John T. Hilton, Grand Master, Henry Harris, William Bruce, of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and James Bird, John G. Bias, James Richmond, of the African Grand Lodge of North America, with its headquarters at Philadelphia, Pa., and the Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, represented by James Newman, John Anderson, Samuel Brackles, Phillip Buckhammond and several others from the Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and from the Boyer Grand Lodge of New York was William H. Clark, Lewis Hayden, Alexander Elston, together with several others, met in Boston, Mass., and organized the National Compact Grand Lodge of North America. They elected John T. Hilton, of Boston, Mass., National Grand Master, and William E. Ambush was elected National Grand Secretary. This National Compact Grand Lodge of North America has done nothing but breed dissension among Colored Masons in the United States.
From its earliest period of existence down to the present date, and it has never been recognized as a regular and legal Masonic Grand Body and never will as long as intelligent men have their right senses about them.
THE GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND HAS NEVER RECOGNIZED THE PRINCE HALL GRAND LODGE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
If it was true that the Grand Lodge of England granted a charter to African Lodge No. 459 at Boston, Mass., on Sept. 29th, 1784, and this same African Lodge organized the African Grand Lodge of Modern Masons of Massachusetts on the 24th of June, 1791, which now is the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, what was the matter or cause and reason that the Grand Lodge of England has failed and refused to recognize the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts?
It must be self apparent to every intelligent Mason that it shows and proves conclusively that the Grand Lodge of England never did grant a Charter to African Lodge No. 459 at Boston, Mass., as the leaders of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts would try to have you believe. Who in the world ever heard of a Grand Lodge granting a charter to a Subordinate Lodge and then refusing to recognize the very Lodge that the Grand Lodge granted them a charter? It is the most ridiculous and absurd statement I ever beard of. It certainly shows that the Grand Lodge of England never at all granted a charter to African Lodge No. 459. On the 29th of Sept., 1784, and the officers of the Grand Lodge of England say that they did not and all the talk about a commission having been granted to Prince Hall as a Provincial Grand Master in America by the Grand Lodge of England stamps the whole thing from beginning to the end as a manufactured statement, a fraud and a sham.