In 1847 the Prince Hall Lodge of the Masons in Massachusetts, the First Independent African Grand Lodge in Pennsylvania, and the Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania formed a National Grand Lodge, and from one or another of these all other Grand Lodges among Negroes have descended.  In 1842 the members of the Philomathean Institute of New York and of the Philadelphia Library Company and Debating Society applied for admission to the International Order of Odd Fellows.  They were refused on account of their race.  Thereupon Peter Ogden, a Negro, who had already joined the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of England, secured a charter for the first Negro American lodge, Philomathean, No. 646, of New York, which was set up March 1, 1843.  It was followed within the next two years by lodges in New York, Philadelphia, Albany, and Poughkeepsie.  The Knights of Pythias were not organized until 1864 in Washington; but the Grand Order of Galilean Fishermen started on its career in Baltimore in 1856.

The benefit societies developed apace.  At first they were small and confined to a group of persons well known to each other, thus being genuinely fraternal.  Simple in form, they imposed an initiation fee of hardly less than $2.50 or more than $5.00, a monthly fee of about 50 cents, and gave sick dues ranging from $1.50 to $5.00 a month, with guarantee of payment of one’s funeral expenses and subsequent help to the widow.  By 1838 there were in Philadelphia alone 100 such groups with 7,448 members.  As bringing together spirits supposedly congenial, these organizations largely took the place of clubs, and the meetings were relished accordingly.  Some drifted into secret societies, and after the Civil War some that had not cultivated the idea of insurance were forced to add this feature to their work.

In the sphere of civil rights the Negroes, in spite of circumstances, were making progress, and that by their own efforts as well as those of their friends the Abolitionists.  Their papers helped decidedly.  The Journal of Freedom (commonly known as Freedom’s Journal), begun March 30, 1827, ran for three years.  It had numerous successors, but no one of outstanding strength before the North Star (later known as Frederick Douglass’ Paper) began publication in 1847, continuing until the Civil War.  Largely through the effort of Paul Cuffe for the franchise, New Bedford, Mass., was generally prominent in all that made for racial prosperity.  Here even by 1850 the Negro voters held the balance of power and accordingly exerted a potent influence on Election day.[1] Under date March 6, 1840, there was brought up for repeal so much of the Massachusetts Statutes as forbade intermarriage between white persons and Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, as “contrary to the principles of Christianity and republicanism.”  The committee said that it did not recommend a repeal in the expectation that the number of connections, legal or illegal, between the races would be thereupon