Star of St Matthews Lodge
(ca. 1920s)
124 Morris Rd, Matthews, NC 28105
The Star of St. Matthews Lodge #566 in the Crestdale (formerly Tank Town) area of Matthews is a still-active example of the significance of fraternal organizations within Mecklenburg County’s African American community since the late 1800s. The growth of such organizations, specifically Prince Hall freemasonry, followed the post-Emancipation history of the Black community as the freedpeople sought to establish their own schools, churches, and civic organizations in their own rural communities and urban neighborhoods. In organizations like the Prince Hall lodges, African American men in rural Mecklenburg County found a sense of tradition, leadership, and comradery that they used to serve their families and community.
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Modern Freemasonry dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries. During the 1700s, National Grand Lodges were established in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The first duly constituted lodge in North America chartered in Boston in 1733. Following the Revolutionary War, states began forming their own independent Grand Lodges. Comprised entirely of White men, no effort was made to include free Blacks in those lodges. In March 1775 Prince Hall, a formerly enslaved Barbados native, and fourteen other African American men were initiated into the lodge of an Irish regimental station in Boston. Ignored by the White Masons in other lodges, Hall and his colleagues were finally chartered officially in 1787 as African Lodge #459 by the Grand Lodge of England. That granted Hall’s group the right to recruit and expand their brotherhood which they actively pursued, growing Black Freemasonry by chartering Prince Hall lodges (so named to honor Hall’s leadership) in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City.
North Carolina’s first Prince Hall lodge – King Solomon Lodge #23 – was founded in 1866 in New Bern by Bishop James Walker Hood, a Mason and African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister from Connecticut sent by the church to establish congregations in the Old North State. Three other lodges soon followed: Giblem Lodge #28 in Wilmington, Eureka #30 in Fayetteville, and Widow’s Son #31 in Raleigh. Members of those four lodges met in 1870 to form the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of the State of North Carolina and to elect Bishop as the head or Grand Master of the state lodge.
The first Prince Hall lodge in Mecklenburg County was Charlotte’s Paul Drayton Lodge #7, established September 10, 1872. Most Mecklenburg County lodges outside of Charlotte were chartered in the early 20th century, including the Silver Set Lodge #327 in Newell (1910), Davidson Lodge #511 (1920), and the Star of St. Matthews Lodge #566 (1925). Christopher Columbus “Budd” Potts (1894-1963), a local farmer who also owned a fish market, was the first president or Worshipful Master of the Matthews lodge. The Matthews lodge purchased the two-story Morris Road building in 1928 from the county Board of Education for $500, making the building one of the county’s oldest Prince Hall meeting places. The Star of St. Matthews Lodge #566 is also home to such adjunct Masonic organizations as Ezell Chapter #67 (affiliated with the York Rite of Freemasonry), Ezell Commandery #9 (affiliated with the York Rite’s Knights Templar), and Venus Chapter #143 of the Order of the Eastern Star (an affiliate Masonic body for women).