Digital Collections Highlight: Theodore Gleghorn's 1921 Master Mason Certificate

by Jeffrey Croteau, Director of the Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives

Theodore Gleghorn’s Master Mason certificate is just one of many documents available in the African American Freemasonry & Fraternalism collection at the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website. Hermon Lodge No. 21 issued this Master Mason certificate to Gleghorn (1890-1978). The certificate is dated October 10, 1921, and signed by Hermon Lodge’s Worshipful Master, Charles Murdock, and Secretary, P. B. French. Located in Sparta, Illinois, Hermon Lodge No. 21 was chartered in 1875 by the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient & Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Illinois.

What makes Gleghorn’s Masonic certificate so different from the many hundreds of Masonic certificates in our collection is that it includes a photograph of the certificate’s owner embossed with Hermon Lodge’s seal. This, in addition to the lodge officers’ signatures and Gleghorn’s own signature, helped prove the document’s authenticity if Gleghorn presented it to a lodge where he was not known.

Seeing Theodore Gleghorn’s portrait on the certificate makes one wonder - who was he? What do we know about him? According to the WWI registration card that Gleghorn filled out in 1917, he was born in Cutler, Illinois, in 1890. In 1917, the Wilson Bros. Coal Co., in Sparta, Illinois, employed him as a miner. The 1920 and 1930 U.S. Federal Censuses also show that Gleghorn continued to work in the coal mining industry. Around 1947, Gleghorn moved north to Springfield, Illinois, where he was employed by the State Division of Local Health Services. He worked there for at least 25 years. A 1971 newsletter published by the Illinois Department of Health includes an article and photograph showing that Gleghorn and other long-serving employees had been honored as members of the Illinois Department of Public Health’s “Quarter Century Club.” Gleghorn was married to Emma L. (Britton) Gleghorn (1907-1980), and they had a son, Emmett D. Gleghorn (1933-1987).

The African American Freemasonry & Fraternalism digital collection brings together a number of documents related to historically black fraternal organizations including many related to Prince Hall Freemasonry. You can access this material online at https://digitalvgw. omeka.net/collections/show/16. Theodore Gleghorn’s Master Mason certificate can be viewed here: https:// digitalvgw.omeka.net/items/show/1084.

Do you have material related to Prince Hall Freemasonry or other historically black fraternal organizations? We’d love to hear about it.

Have a question or need more info? Drop us a line at library@srmml.org or give us a call at 781-457-4109.