140th year for Harmony Lodge No. 40

Two significant chapters of Cape Girardeau's rich African-American history converged in the chambers of the City Council meeting on Aug. 20, 2018. First, Mayor Bob Fox issued a poclamation declaring the day in honor of Harmony Lodge No. 40, recognizing the organization's long history (140 years in 2020) and continuous record of civil engagement. Second, the agenda included an appeal for the addition of a statue to memorialize the U.S. Colored Troop soldiers enlisted at the Common Pleas Courthouse 1863-64. Both groups, representing different aspects of African-American history, met in the hallway after the meeting and pledged to look further into the threads stitching together the histories represented.

Harmony Lodge No. 40 aligns with the Prince Hall Freemasonry tradition, the oldest African-American Masonic order in America, first chartered in Boston in 1784. Harry E. Davis' "History of Freemasonry Among Negroes in America" (published 1946), contends white Masonry was too busy during the Revolutionary Colonial period to notice a small group of black men who sought and received its own charter from the Grand Lodge of England. The group included Prince Hall, an artisan and abolitionist, appointed first grand master by the English charter, and subsequent namesake for this Masonic tradition. The first, African Lodge No. 459, was attacked and challenged as a illegitimate branch, but supported by the records of the Grand Lodge of England, proved the test of origin and legality.

While Prince Hall Masons practice the secret rituals and biblical Christian values of Freemasons worldwide, they also share with other black fraternal organizations a commitment to racial uplift, mutual aid and social justice. During slavery and segregation, Masonic lodges provided safe gathering places for the black community, as well as organization to serve benevolent, social and cultural needs of the community. Members included prominent men, clergymen and politicians who served as role models for black male identity and empowerment.

Prince Hall Lodges were established in St. Louis in 1859. The W.R. Lawton Lodge No. 40 was organized in Cape Girardeau in 1866, according to Lorenzo Ware Sr. (Peaceful Lodge No. 181, Sikeston, Missouri). Lawton, a St. Louisan, was a zealous ambassador of Masonic organizations and established lodges throughout the state.

Lawton Lodge No. 40's membership was a mix of notables and commoners from the black community. The earliest rosters included Barton Hale, a common laborer; Edward Johnson, a tanner, then engineer and foreman at the paint mill; George Moore, support staff at the St. Charles Hotel; Henry Rowan, Cape Girardeau's premier barber serving white and black customers; W.R. Kenney, school superintendent at St. James AME Church; and Owen Bush, a farmer.

Reorganized as Harmony Lodge No. 40 in 1880, Cape Girardeau's Prince Hall Masonic tradition has endured. Lodges across Southeast Missouri all derive from Cape Girardeau's Harmony Lodge.

Harmony Lodge members, dressed in Masonic regalia, represented solemn dignity at the dedication of the U.S. Colored Troop Memorial in June 2019. The threads of history stitched themselves together to highlight the generations of leadership and civic engagement of Cape Girardeau's black community past and present.