THE MASON FAMILY
The first George Mason came to Virginia during the middle of the seventeenth century.[3] Two other Georges followed before 1725, when the fourth George Mason, "The Pen of the Revolution," was born. Movement of the Mason family had been gradually northward, from Norfolk, then to Stafford and Prince William Counties in Virginia, across the Potomac River to Charles County, Maryland, and then back to Fairfax County in Virginia where, in 1758, George Mason IV built Gunston Hall.
The builder of Gunston Hall was later the author of the Fairfax Resolves, of the first Constitution of Virginia and of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. His Declaration of Rights, which was adopted by the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg on June 12, 1776, was the major source for the Federal Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791. Though a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mason refused to sign the Constitution because it did not provide for the abolition of slavery, nor did it, in his views, sufficiently safeguard the rights of the individual.[4]
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other early American leaders were friends of George Mason and Mason's family surely met many of them at Gunston Hall. Jefferson, who called George Mason "the wisest man of his generation," was his last recorded visitor at Gunston Hall, on September 30, 1792.[5] On October 7, one week later, Mason died.
Nine of his children married. On December 17, 1788, George wrote to his son John that "Your brother Thomson and his family have just moved from Gunston to his own seat at Hollin Hall."
A tutor of General Thomson Mason's family, Elijah Fletcher, wrote in a letter from Alexandria, August 4, 1810:
[General Mason is] ... a man of note and respectability, his family very agreeable, social, affable and easy. I use as much freedom in the family as I did at my fathers house. I doubt not of their kindness to me in health or sickness. My employment is respectable and I consider my standing upon a par and equality with most of the people. Our living is rich and what in Vermont would be called extravagant. The family rise very late in the morning and consequently do not have breakfast till eight or nine. Our dinner at three and tea at eight in the evening.[6]
General Thomson Mason served as an officer of militia in the American Revolution, held numerous state and local offices and was active in organizing banks and transportation companies before his death in 1820.
It was his son, Thomson Francis Mason, born in 1785 at Gunston Hall, who built "Huntley."
Thomson Francis Mason
Thomson Francis Mason was heir to a family tradition of important friendships, public service and good taste, and he carried on this tradition. Educated at Princeton, Class of 1807,[7] he chose to return to the Fairfax County area to practice law and enter public service.
His life story is difficult to trace. No biography exists, nor is he mentioned in most works concerning Alexandria, even though he later attained significant recognition there.
On November 24, 1817, the Alexandria Gazette announced the marriage, on Wednesday evening, November 19th of:
Thomson F. Mason, Esq., of this place, to Miss Elizabeth C. Price of Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia....
The young Mrs. Mason was familiarly known as Eliza Clapham Price, not as Elizabeth C., but Thomson F. called her Betsey.
The use of the phrase "of this place" is of interest here, and open to several interpretations. It could mean that he was living in Alexandria at the time or only that he had an office there. He could have been living in Alexandria and building a home in Fairfax County at the same time.
Mason was probably already a practicing lawyer at the time of his marriage and was by 1824 a man of consequence in Alexandria.
The fight to get out of the District began in 1824, while it was not settled by Congress until 1846. The citizens of Alexandria, becoming tired of being in the District of Columbia, made an attempt to have Alexandria receded to Virginia. A meeting was held March 9, 1824, for the purpose of preparing a memorial to Congress on the subject. S. Thompson Mason was Chairman of the meeting....[8]
The memorial sent to Congress was couched in legal enough terms to have been drafted by Mason, who later became a judge. His political activities gave him enough local standing to insure his election as Mayor of Alexandria in 1827 and again in 1836.[9]
A glimpse of Mason as a family man can be seen in a reply to a letter from his wife in which she complained of an exchange of words with Huntley's overseer (in 1828), Slighter Smith. Mason, who must have been in court at Leesburg, wrote:
I have been indeed a little surprised at hearing the conduct of Mr. Smith. Altho' I knew about the general unkind and bad temper which he possessed, I had no idea that he would have ventured to exhibit it in your presence—or have him guilty of the insolence of threatening violence in your presence and to one under your protection.... I still cannot believe that he would seriously attempt it....
In that same letter Mason noted:
... the great pleasure and pride I have ever felt in seeing you placed above the flame, and having you so looked up to by others.[10]
As a good plantation manager, he also included a note to Smith informing him of his surprise and displeasure at the outbreak and suggesting:
I feel it is proper to inform you that I shall feel it my duty to inquire strictly into this subject—And with regard to the threatened violence I beg leave ... to put you on your guard and to inform you that any new attempt will be followed by the most serious consequences.
Mason lived in several houses in Alexandria (see Appendix A), but it was the time he spent at Colross which seems to have received the most notice. Mrs. Marian Gouverneur wrote in her book, As I Remember:
Another Virginia family of social prominence, whose members mingled much in Washington Society, while I was still visiting the Winfield Scotts, was that of the Masons of "Colross," the name of their old homestead near Alexandria in Virginia. Mrs. Thomson F. Mason was usually called Mrs. "Colross" Mason to distinguish her from another family by the same name, that of James M. Mason, United States Senator from Virginia. The family thought nothing of the drive to Washington and no entertainment was quite complete without the "Mason girls," who were especially bright and attractive young women. Open house was kept at this delightful country seat, and many were the pleasant parties given there....[11]
Indeed the Mason occupancy of Colross made such an impression, that for years afterward the house was known as "The Mason Mansion." During the Civil War, on October 12, 1864, the Alexandria Gazette, in reporting the military occupation of the town, carried the following item on Colross:
... The fine old Mason mansion, in the suburbs of the town, was hired by an army officer.... The Mason mansion ... is a fair type of the residence of a wealthy Virginian. A wide hall in the centre opens into various rooms, while the front entrance is approached through a pleasant courtyard. At the rear of the house is a spacious area, paved with marble in diamond shaped blocks, looking out upon a large garden, well shaded with fruit trees and surrounded by a heavy brick wall. At one corner of this garden is the family tomb, in which are the remains of old Judge Mason, the former owner of the estate, who died just before the war broke out. He was a near relative of the present Confederate Commissioner to England, and his widow now resides at Point of Rocks....
Colross remained in the Mason family until the 1880's, Mrs. Betty Carter Smoot, Alexandria historian, who lived at Colross, wrote in 1934, of the house and family:
Jonathan Swift and his wife, and the Masons, who for many years resided at Colross, are said to have lived in great style and elegance. As regarded the Masons, there were still some evidences of this when we went there. Although pretty well denuded of its furnishings, there were one or two fine old mahogany pieces which had not been removed, and some handsome mirrors, with gilded frames, of a size appropriate to the surroundings. In the garret was stored quantities of china, remains of dinner sets, some in white and gold and others in blue willow pattern. There were some beautiful old cut glass decanters, wine glasses, and goblets. I remember also some vases and other bric-a-brac. Much of this was mutilated, but it furnished a fair sample of the style of living maintained in palmy days of the past. These belongings of the Masons were all packed, under the supervision of a daughter of the family, Miss Caroline Mason, and disposed of by her.[12]
When Thomson F. Mason died on December 21, 1838, his obituary in the Alexandria Gazette ran two full columns.[13] It was noted that Mason, who was a Judge of the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia at the time of his death, had:
... graduated at Princeton with the highest honors of that institution ... studied law and practiced with much success and celebrity, until he was elevated by the Executive of the United States to that Station on the Bench, which he filled with such ability at the time of his decease ... his services were eminently valuable not only in the character of Chief Magistrate of their City (Alexandria), the duties of which he discharged for many years, but in all their public undertakings....
That same issue of the Gazette carried resolutions of the Common Council of Alexandria decreeing that they would:
... attend his funeral, and will wear crape on the left arm for one month.... That, as a further mark of respect, and to evince the sense of his community of their loss, the great bell in the public building be tolled on Sunday next, from 1 o'clock P.M., till half past 4 P.M....
Members of the Bar and Officers of the Courts of Alexandria County voted to:
... attend his funeral ... and wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days ... that a committee of three be appointed respectively to tender them [family] our condolence ... that the proceeding of the meeting be published in the Alexandria Gazette....
The Bar and Officers of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia voted to:
... attend his funeral, and, during the residue of the term, wear the usual badges of mourning ... that the Chairman [Francis Scott Key] with Richard Coxe and Alexander Hunter, Esqrs., be a Committee to tender to the family of the deceased the sympathy of this meeting at the death of one endeared to us by long acquaintance, which has made known the character of the deceased as one deserving of our warmest personal regard and highest respect, and which rendered this event a great public loss, as well as a private affliction....
T. F. Mason had been appointed to the newly organized Criminal Court of the District of Columbia less than six months before his death. He was the first judge appointed to that court, and its only judge during its formative period. As a Justice of Peace he had received his first appointment in February 1828, and was reappointed in 1833, and 1838.[14]
The story of Mason's life presented here is only a partial one but it is included to show something of the type of man who built Huntley.[15]
Chapter 1 Notes
Figure 2. Huntley house and barn complex, viewed from the south. 1947. Photo by Bill Amlong, copy by Wm. Edmund Barrett.
