I was flipping through a stack of photos at auction recently and found two that caused me to pause. Both were black and whites of two separate groups of black men who were Masons. They stood poised in white gloves and tails, staring into the camera.
I put the photos aside with the intent of returning to them once I completed my journey through the stack.
Then I came across another photo that also stopped me. It, too, was a black and white, and the subjects appeared to be from an era not unlike the Masons’. The photo showed three rows of white women in dark dresses with white bows tied around their necks. Each had a pair of what looked to be juggling pins. They were not identified (unfortunately, too many folks didn’t mark photos back then).
I put that photo aside, too, and kept looking. Finding nothing else of interest in the stack, I returned to the photo of the men. Slips of paper attached to the photos identified them:
The first, with most of the men wearing a fez: “John W. Layton Lodge, #18, Wilmington, Instituted July 16th, 1880. The officers are Enoch Wright, W.M.; Julius Barlow, S.W.; Herbert Barlow, J.W.” Part of the wording was missing. The W.M. stands for Worshipful Master, a title given to the senior officer in the lodge, followed by Senior Warden (S.W.) and the Junior Warden (J.W.).
The second photo: “Suakim Temple, Order of the Mystic Shrine.” Neither photo was dated.
The Layton lodge was likely part of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Delaware, one of the thousands that grew out of that fraternity of African American men. I could find only one reference to the Layton lodge in Google.
Freemasonry for African American men has its roots in Boston through a man for whom the fraternity is named. Before the Revolutionary War, Prince Hall and 14 other free black men petitioned the white Masons for membership and were turned down. So, they asked a lodge chartered by the Grand Lodge of Ireland (and whose members were with the British forces in Boston) and were granted admission in 1775. But their functioning was limited so they requested a charter through other means. A man who fought for equal rights and against slavery, Hall is considered the father of African American freemasonry. The fraternity eventually became an independent entity.
In the 1820s, the Rev. Absalom Jones – who with the Rev. Richard Allen founded the first African church in Philadelphia in 1792 – sought and received permission for charters to establish lodges in Philadelphia, which also drew men from Delaware. Subsequently, those Delaware members requested a charter to start one in Wilmington in 1845. Several other lodges were formed in the state and they all came together in 1849 to form a single entity, whose name was changed to the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of Delaware.
Both groups of men are standing outside of what may have been the Delaware Masons’ lodge. A photo in the archives of the New York Public Library shows members of the Hiram Grand Lodge F. & A. M. in Delaware posing outside the same building during the 73rd annual communication in Wilmington in 1922.
The Suakim Temple order are Prince Hall Shriners. Formally known as the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order Nobles Mystic Shrine of North America, the order was founded in 1893 by 13 Prince Hall Masons. It was originally organized under the name Imperial Council of Prince Hall Shriners, and describes itself as a benevolent, charitable and fraternal group. Based in Delaware, its affiliates are called temples and courts, not lodges.
As for the women, I’m not sure if they were holding juggling pins or Indian clubs that are used for exercising. If those are juggling pins, the women were part of a long tradition of females as jugglers. Most of the early jugglers – back 4,000 years or so – were women, in Egyptian, Greek and Chinese cultures. They were the ones tossing balls in the air and spinning plates. It seems that along the way, women jugglers became hidden in history.
A German woman named Lottie Brunn is said to be the fastest female juggler in history. At the age of 14, she could juggle eight rings, and her repertoire included juggling with balls and rings, as well as ball spinning.
Indian clubs are used for strength training, and they are not tossed but swung. The practice originated in India. Perhaps, the clubs were used by the women in a camp program, since it appears that they are outdoors.
