12/08/2026
🇧🇿 THE FORGOTTEN LODGE OF BELIZE
The Remarkable Story of Amity Lodge No. 309, the Baymen, Spanish Captivity, Jamaica, and the Beginnings of Freemasonry in Belize
Long before Belize was called British Honduras, long before Belize City became the center of the settlement, and 35 years before the Battle of St. George’s Caye, an institution associated with the British Atlantic world had already appeared on the shores of the Bay of Honduras.
It was a Masonic lodge.
Its name was Amity Lodge No. 309.
And its story takes us from the early British settlement of Belize, through war with Spain, imprisonment and escape, across the Caribbean to Jamaica, and ultimately into the archives of the Grand Lodge of England.
It is a remarkable and largely forgotten chapter of Belizean history.
🇬🇧 BELIZE, 1763
To understand Amity Lodge, we have to forget the Belize we know today.
There was no independent Belize.
There was not yet a Crown Colony called British Honduras.
There was a scattered British settlement on territory claimed by Spain, populated by merchants, sailors, logwood cutters, enslaved Africans, free people of colour, craftsmen, adventurers and the men who would become collectively remembered as the Baymen.
The sea was their highway.
The Belize River was one of their commercial arteries.
And St. George’s Caye was among the most important centers of British settlement.
Then, in 1763, something extraordinary happened.
The Grand Lodge of England issued a warrant for a Masonic lodge in the Bay of Honduras.
It was called:
AMITY LODGE NO. 309
Historical Masonic sources place it in the Bay of Honduras and associate it with St. George’s Caye, while an early description also refers to its location as “Up the River Belise, Bay of Honduras.”
Later historical scholarship likewise identifies Amity Lodge No. 309 as having been formed at Belize in 1763. (Dokumen)
Think about that date for a moment.
1763.
That was the same year the Seven Years’ War ended with the Treaty of Paris.
Britain and Spain were still wrestling diplomatically and militarily over the British presence in the Bay of Honduras.
Yet these settlers were already establishing institutions connected directly to Britain.
One of them was Freemasonry.
So when we ask:
“Who brought Freemasonry to Belize?”
The most accurate answer may not be a single individual.
The documentary evidence instead points toward the early British Atlantic community itself, with the Grand Lodge of England formally warranting a lodge among the settlers of the Bay of Honduras.
And Amity Lodge is the earliest lodge in that story.
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⚓ A MASONIC LODGE ON THE EDGE OF AN EMPIRE
It is easy today to imagine a Masonic lodge as a substantial temple with columns, ceremonial furniture and a permanent lodge room.
That may give us the wrong mental picture of Amity.
Eighteenth-century Belize was a frontier settlement.
Buildings were largely wooden. Communication with Britain could take months. Hurricanes, disease, war and Spanish attack were constant possibilities.
The lodge would have existed within this small maritime world.
Its members would have known the same waterways, cayes, trading routes and dangers as the other inhabitants of the settlement.
Unfortunately, the complete original membership roll of Amity Lodge has not yet emerged from the sources I have been able to verify.
But one man emerges very clearly from the historical darkness.
His name was:
DR. WALTER DAVIDSON
Davidson was a physician.
And more importantly for our story, surviving records identify him as the Master of Amity Lodge.
His life would become intertwined with one of the most dramatic episodes in the early history of Belize.
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⚔️ THE SPANISH ATTACK OF 1779
Sixteen years after Amity Lodge was warranted, disaster struck the British settlement.
Britain and Spain were again at war.
In September 1779, Spanish forces attacked the British settlement in the Bay of Honduras.
Many inhabitants were taken prisoner.
Among those caught were several brethren of Amity Lodge.
And among them was their Master:
Dr. Walter Davidson.
This is no longer simply Masonic tradition passed down through generations.
Modern scholarship based upon records preserved in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry of the United Grand Lodge of England specifically identifies Davidson and several Amity brethren among those captured during the Spanish action. (1723 Constitutions)
And another fascinating man was imprisoned with them.
His name was:
DR. BENJAMIN MOSELEY
Moseley was a physician who had studied medicine in London, Paris and Leiden before going to Jamaica.
He later became a prominent medical writer in the British West Indies.
But his entrance into Freemasonry came through an extraordinary chain of events connected directly to Belize.
Moseley visited the Bay of Honduras.
There, he was captured by the Spanish alongside Dr. Walter Davidson, several members of Amity Lodge and British logwood cutters. (1723 Constitutions)
Imagine the scene.
The Master of Belize’s Masonic lodge.
Members of his lodge.
British logwood cutters.
A visiting physician.
All suddenly prisoners of Spain.
For many organizations, that would have been the end.
But Amity Lodge’s story was not finished.
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🌊 ESCAPE TO JAMAICA
Davidson and Moseley were among those who managed to make their way out of Spanish captivity and reach Kingston, Jamaica.
And this is where the story takes an extraordinary turn.
Amity Lodge went with them.
The lodge born in the Bay of Honduras apparently continued its Masonic life in Kingston.
In effect, Amity became something resembling a Belizean lodge in exile.
Davidson did not simply disappear into Jamaican society.
He remained connected to the Grand Lodge in England.
And we possess documentary evidence of what happened next.
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📜 THE LETTER OF 1782
On June 10, 1782, Dr. Walter Davidson reported to the Grand Lodge concerning the relocation of Amity Lodge.
Along with his communication, he sent funds to record five new members.
One of those men was the physician who had shared the ordeal of Spanish captivity with him:
Dr. Benjamin Moseley.
The archival reference cited by modern Masonic scholarship is:
United Grand Lodge of England
Library and Museum of Freemasonry
GBR 1991 HC 22/B/8
The surviving scholarship describes the document as Davidson’s report to Grand Lodge of 10 June 1782 concerning the relocation of Amity Lodge, together with funds to record five new members, including Moseley. (1723 Constitutions)
That single document is incredibly important to Belizean Masonic history.
It gives us a direct documentary bridge between:
Belize → Amity Lodge → Walter Davidson → Spanish captivity → Jamaica → Benjamin Moseley → Grand Lodge in London.
This was not merely a lodge name sitting forgotten on an eighteenth-century list.
These were real people moving through the violent geopolitical world of the Caribbean.
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🏛️ AMITY LODGE APPEARS IN JAMAICA
There is further evidence that Amity really did continue working in Jamaica.
The 1784 Almanac and Register for the Island of Jamaica contains a list of Masonic lodges.
Among them appears:
“Amity Lodge, held at Free-Masons Hall, Kingston.” (Jamaican Family Search)
There it is.
In black and white.
A lodge whose story began in the Bay of Honduras was now meeting at Freemasons Hall in Kingston, Jamaica.
That makes Amity part of a much larger Caribbean story.
The eighteenth-century Caribbean was not a collection of isolated colonies. Ships constantly carried people, correspondence, merchandise, military personnel, news and ideas between Belize, Jamaica, Britain and other territories.
Freemasonry travelled through those same networks.
Amity Lodge is an excellent example.
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🩺 DAVIDSON AND MOSELEY
There is another fascinating dimension to the relationship between these two men.
After reaching Jamaica, Walter Davidson and Benjamin Moseley practiced medicine together.
Davidson reportedly developed a considerable reputation for treating cancers.
Moseley went on to become a significant, although today controversial, medical writer and observer of Caribbean society.
His writings also helped introduce British readers to stories from Jamaica, including the famous account of the outlaw known as Three-Fingered Jack.
The scholarly account of Moseley’s life specifically connects his introduction to Freemasonry to his captivity in the Bay of Honduras with Davidson and the brethren of Amity Lodge. (1723 Constitutions)
So one of the fascinating aspects of this story is that Freemasonry provided a social network extending across borders.
A man could be in the Bay of Honduras one year, a prisoner of Spain the next, and later find himself sitting among brethren in a lodge room in Kingston.
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🧭 THEN COMES THE GREAT QUESTION: 1798
And now we arrive at perhaps the most intriguing question for Belizeans.
What connection, if any, existed between Amity Lodge and the Battle of St. George’s Caye?
Amity was warranted in 1763.
The Spanish attack and capture occurred in 1779.
The lodge was operating in Kingston by the early 1780s.
The Battle of St. George’s Caye took place in September 1798.
So the histories overlap.
But we have to be careful.
There is currently no evidence I have found that allows us to declare that the men who fought at St. George’s Caye in 1798 were members of Amity Lodge.
That would be a wonderful discovery.
But history must be evidence before it becomes legend.
By the 1780s, documentary evidence places Amity Lodge in Kingston.
A Jamaican almanac from 1799 still lists an Amity Lodge in Kingston, although care is needed because lodge names and warrants could change and more than one lodge named Amity existed in the wider Masonic world. (Jamaican Family Search)
Likewise, an 1802 Jamaican almanac records an Amity Lodge among Kingston’s Ancient York Masons. (Jamaican Family Search)
So we should not simply place a Masonic meeting at St. George’s Caye on the eve of the Battle without documentary proof.
The real historical question is subtler and perhaps even more interesting:
Did former members of Amity Lodge return to the Bay of Honduras?
Were any members connected by family, commerce or friendship to the Baymen who later defended the settlement?
Do names in the Amity Lodge registers appear among the settlers, property holders or military participants associated with 1798?
Those questions remain open.
And somewhere in an archive, the answers may still exist.
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📜 THE LOST NAMES
This may be the most tantalizing part of the entire story.
We know Walter Davidson.
We know Benjamin Moseley.
We know Davidson reported five new members in 1782.
We know several brethren were captured during the Spanish attack.
But we do not yet have a fully verified list of the men who stood at the beginning of Amity Lodge in 1763.
Finding that list could be historically important.
Because those names could potentially be compared against:
• early Baymen records
• land and property records
• St. George’s Caye inhabitants
• logwood and mahogany merchants
• shipping records
• colonial correspondence
• prisoner lists from the Spanish attack
• and eventually the families associated with the events of 1798.
One piece of paper could connect several pieces of Belize’s early history.
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🇧🇿 WHY AMITY LODGE MATTERS TO BELIZE
Amity Lodge matters for reasons far beyond Freemasonry.
Its story gives us another window into what Belize was becoming during the eighteenth century.
The settlement was politically uncertain.
Spain claimed sovereignty.
Britain’s position was complicated.
The population was small.
Yet institutions were already forming.
Commercial networks existed.
Professional networks existed.
International correspondence existed.
And by 1763, a Masonic lodge connected directly to England existed in the Bay of Honduras.
Then came war.
Its members were captured.
Its Master escaped.
The lodge crossed the Caribbean.
It continued working in Jamaica.
And correspondence about its affairs crossed the Atlantic to London.
That is an extraordinary journey for an institution founded in a tiny settlement on the edge of the Caribbean.
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⚓ FROM ST. GEORGE’S CAYE TO KINGSTON
There is something almost cinematic about the geography of this story.
Picture the Bay of Honduras in the 1760s.
Wooden vessels anchored offshore.
Logwood being cut upriver.
Small settlements scattered along the coast.
St. George’s Caye sitting offshore.
British settlers living under the constant knowledge that Spain regarded their presence very differently from Britain.
Among them, a group of Freemasons obtains a warrant from England.
They call their lodge:
AMITY.
Sixteen years later, Spanish forces descend upon the settlement.
The Master and several brethren are captured.
Some escape.
They reach Jamaica.
And rather than allowing their lodge to disappear, they continue meeting.
Then, from Kingston, Walter Davidson writes back across the Atlantic to Grand Lodge.
The paperwork survives.
Two and a half centuries later, we can still follow the trail.
Belize.
Spain.
Captivity.
Escape.
Jamaica.
London.
All connected by one lodge.
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🧩 AND THE STORY ISN’T FINISHED
There are still missing pieces.
The most important would be the original 1763 warrant and early membership records of Amity Lodge No. 309.
If those records survive in England, they may contain names Belizeans have not associated with Freemasonry for more than two centuries.
Those names could then be compared with the early families of the settlement.
And perhaps, eventually, with the men connected to St. George’s Caye and 1798.
Until those documents are examined, we should resist turning possibility into fact.
But what has already been documented is extraordinary enough.
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🇧🇿 THE STORY IN DATES
1763
Amity Lodge No. 309 is warranted under the Grand Lodge of England in the Bay of Honduras, making it one of the earliest documented Masonic lodges associated with Belize. (Dokumen)
1779
Spanish forces attack the British settlement. Dr. Walter Davidson, Master of Amity Lodge, and several brethren are captured, along with British logwood cutters and Dr. Benjamin Moseley. (1723 Constitutions)
After 1779
Davidson and Moseley reach Kingston, Jamaica, where Amity Lodge continues to meet. (1723 Constitutions)
June 10, 1782
Davidson reports the lodge’s relocation to Grand Lodge and submits funds to record five new members, including Benjamin Moseley. (1723 Constitutions)
1784
The Jamaica Almanac lists Amity Lodge at Freemasons Hall, Kingston. (Jamaican Family Search)
1798
The Battle of St. George’s Caye takes place. The possibility of personal connections between Amity members and the Baymen of this era remains an intriguing subject for further archival research.
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🔺 A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER OF BELIZE
So the next time someone asks:
“How far back does Freemasonry go in Belize?”
The answer is remarkable.
At least to 1763.
Before British Honduras.
Before the Battle of St. George’s Caye.
Before many of the institutions we associate with colonial Belize.
There was Amity Lodge No. 309.
Its brethren lived in the uncertain world of the early Bay settlement.
Its Master was captured by Spain.
Its surviving members carried their lodge across the Caribbean.
And evidence of their story remains preserved more than 260 years later.
This is more than Masonic history.
It is Belizean history. 🇧🇿
And somewhere among the old registers, correspondence and membership lists may still be the names that connect Amity Lodge to the families and events that shaped the Belize we know today.
The story of Amity Lodge is not finished.
It is waiting in the archives to be rediscovered.
