George Mason I (5 June 1629 – 1686)[1][2] was the American progenitor of the prominent American landholding and political Mason family. Mason was the great-grandfather of George Mason IV, a Founding Father of the United States.[1]
George Mason I | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses representing Stafford County | |
| In office 1676–1677 Serving with Thomas Mathew | |
| Preceded by | Henry Meese |
| Succeeded by | William Fitzhugh |
| In office 1680–1682 Serving with William Fitzhugh | |
| Preceded by | n/a |
| Succeeded by | Martin Scarlett |
| In office 1684–1685 Serving with William Fitzhugh | |
| Preceded by | Martin Scarlett |
| Succeeded by | Martin Scarlett |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 5 June 1629 Pershore, England |
| Died | 1686 (aged 56–57) Stafford County, Colony of Virginia |
| Resting place | Accokeek, Stafford County, Virginia |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | Mary French Margaret Allerton Frances Norgrave |
| Relations | great-grandfather of George Mason IV |
| Children | George Mason II |
| Occupation | plantar, soldier, legislator, justice of the peace |
Early life
editGeorge Mason was born in Pershore, England, on 5 June 1629.[1][3] He was the third of seven children of yeoman farmer Thomas Mason and his wife Ann French.[1][2] George Mason was christened at Pershore Abbey, Holy Cross Church, Pershore, Worcestershire, on 10 June 1629.[1][2]
Royalist in England
editGeorge Mason I was a Cavalier during the reign of Charles I of England, like his father Thomas Mason, who opposed Charles I's execution in 1649. With the rank of captain, Mason commanded a troop of horse in Charles II's army. After Oliver Cromwell led the parliamentary-funded troops to victory over the Masons and other Royalist forces at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, George and younger brother William Mason hurriedly left England.[citation needed]
Career in Virginia
editThe ancestral Masons probably arrived at Norfolk, Virginia on the ship Assurance in 1652.[2][3] In addition to his younger brother William, Mason emigrated with cousins and neighbors from England, Thomas and Gerard Fowke of Staffordshire.[2][3] Mason settled in then-vast Westmoreland County in the early 1650s. In 1664 he helped to name Stafford County when increasing population in the area led the Virginia General Assembly and royal governor to form it from Westmoreland County.[3]
Planter
editThis first George Mason eventually settled permanently near an Indian village along Accokeek Creek on a hill between present-day State Routes 608 (Brooke Road) and 621 (Marlborough Point Road) in Stafford County.[3] He grew tobacco using a labor force of indentured servants. Mason named his residence Accokeek, but after the tribe disappeared from the area, the Mason family rechristened it "Rose Hill".[3] The property was named for the Accokeek tribe which inhabited both sides of the Potomac River (and despite later wars and disease some individuals remained in present-day Prince George's County, Maryland through the Revolutionary War area).[4] Accokeek plantation began as 650 acres (2.6 km2) and gradually increased to 1,150 acres (4.7 km2) in size.[3]
Politician and military officer
editMason's political career may have been delayed by a Jamestown commission charged with investigating a complaint by Wahanganoche, a Patawomeck Indian chief, whom Captain Giles Brent captured in March 1661/1662 and charged with killing an Englishman. An investigatory commission in Jamestown fully exonerated Wahanganoche, finding him framed for the murder. They also fined Colonel Gerrard Fowke ten thousand pounds of tobacco for allowing the real murderer to escape, and ordered Brent to pay Wahanganoche 200 arms lengths of wampum (which they called "roanoke").[5][6] The commission also ordered Colonel Fowke, Captain Mason and Mr. John Lord to pay the chief 100 arms lengths apiece.[7] However, Wahanganoche died in 1663, not long after returning from Jamestown, so the commission's declaring all the other men ineligible to hold public office had little effect (voters in then-vast Westmoreland County elected Fowke as one of the burgesses representing them in 1663 and 1665).[8]
In 1670, Mason won election as Stafford county's (second) sheriff and five years later was selected as the county lieutenant, an important military position in light of raids by Native Americans as well as the Dutch, who had nearly captured Jamestown (the colony's capital) in 1667. Mason continued to lead the local militia as an officer, eventually earning the honorific colonel.[3]
In July 1675, Robert Hen, a herdsman who was an indentured servant of fellow planter Thomas Mathew was found dying near his cabin by parishioners gathering for church. A dead Doeg warrior nearby and his final words "Doeg" seemed to implicate the Doeg (a/k/a Dogue), an Algonquin-speaking tribe whose main village had been on what had been called Doeg or Dogue Neck, but which is now known as Mason Neck after this man's descendants acquired the land from the Fowke family. The Doegs had resented Mathew for cheating them and not paying for some beaverskins, and had attempted to steal some hogs, hence the fatal skirmish.[9] At Mathew's behest, Mason and Brent's nephew Captain George Brent led the initial Stafford County militia response. Militiamen surrounded cabins and murdered at least ten peaceable Indians before Mason realized the mistake and ordered the militia to stand down in what became a prelude to Bacon's rebellion the following year, and expulsion of most native peoples from the coastal region.[10][11][12]
In 1676 after Governor Berkeley called for elections and in part because former burgess Henry Meese (1665-1669) returned to England, fellow settlers elected Mason and Matthew to represent Stafford county (part time) in the House of Burgesses, the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly. However, the following year, neither won re-election, and Stafford county was represented by only William Fitzhugh for several years. In 1680, the House of Burgesses was expanded, and voters elected Mason to serve alongside Fitzhugh, though Mason would die in 1686 and his son would win election and re-election many times (including alongside George Brent in 1688 as well as many times alongside Fitzhugh and his son).[13] The first George Mason in Virginia thus began traditions of land ownership (including of indentured servants and later enslaved people) and of political leadership.
Mason also served as Stafford County's as a Justice of the Peace and vestryman of the local parish of the Church of England.[3] The Acts of the Assembly for 1675, 1679, and 1684, mention Colonel Mason as actively engaged in defending his frontier county against the Indians.[citation needed]
Marriage and children
editMason married Mary French in 1658.[1][2] He and Mary had one son:[1]
- George Mason II (1660–1716)[1]
Mason married secondly to Margaret Allerton in Stafford County, Virginia in 1661. They had 3 sons:[14]
- Isaac Mason (1661-1689)
- Richard Mason (1662-1693)
- William Mason (1663-1686)
Mason married thirdly to the newly widowed Mary French Norgrave in 1669 in Stafford County, Virginia.[1][2] They had one daughter, Sarah E. Mason, born in 1672. The widow, who had brought with her 300 acres from her marriage to Captain John Norgrove (d. 1669), would marry again, to Dr. Edward Maddox, who owned considerable land in King George County and would serve as a Stafford County justice of the peace from 1691 until at least 1693.[15]
Death and legacy
editMason died in 1686.[1] His body was interred in 1686 on a hillside at Accokeek in Stafford County, Virginia.[1][3] His gravesite is currently unmarked.[3] His son, George Mason II soon sold the Accokeek plantation and built one along Chopawamsic Creek, as well as continued to acquire land on both sides of the Potomac River.[3]
Masonvale
editGeorge Mason University, named in honor of Mason's great-grandson, re-established its Naming Committee to research and select names for its campus facilities and infrastructure.[16] The committee agreed upon the name "Masonvale" for its faculty and staff housing community in the northeast section of George Mason University's Fairfax Campus.[16] The appendage of "vale" was derived from George Mason I's birthplace, Pershore, which lies in an agricultural region known as the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire, England.[16] To unify the naming theme within Masonvale, the names "Pershore" and "Evesham" were then used as street names for the community.[16] Other street names used are "Bredon Hill," "Cotswolds Hill," and "Staffordshire."[16] All are regions of Old Worcestershire where many of Mason's ancestors once resided.[16]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gunston Hall. "George Mason I". Gunston Hall. Archived from the original on 15 January 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2009.
- ^ a b c d e f g French Family Association (2008). "Children of Dennis French, A.2". French Family Association. Retrieved 21 March 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lee Woolf (7 April 2002). "George Mason gets memorial in D.C." The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company. Archived from the original on 8 December 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2008.
- ^ https://lost-colony.com/trade.html [bare URL]
- ^ Walter Biscoe Norris Jr.(ed) Westmoreland County, Virginia (Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors, 1983) pp. 20-21
- ^ "The Case of Wahanganoche; an excerpt from the Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia (1662)".
- ^ Jerrilyn Eby, They called Stafford Home: The Development of Stafford County, Virginia, from 1600 until 1865 (Heritage Books, Inc.) p. 5 ISBN 978-0-7884-0665-2
- ^ Michael L. Oberg (ed.), Samuel Wiseman's Book of Record: The Official Account of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia (Lexington Books2005) p. 12 ISBN 978-0-7391-0711-9
- ^ "The Brent Family".
- ^ Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 (1957) pp. 12-14 online edition (unpaginated text file)
- ^ Norris pp. 21-23
- ^ Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond: Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 41, 46, 47, 49, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 73
- ^ "George Mason b. 5 Jun 1629 Pershore, Worcester, England d. 1686 Accokeek, Stafford County, Virginia: Early Colonial Settlers of Southern Maryland and Virginia's Northern Neck Counties". www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
- ^ Jerrilynn Eby, Land of Hogs and Wildcats: People and Places of Lower Stafford County, Virginia (Heritage Books 2013) p. 533 ISBN 978-0-7884-5486-8
- ^ a b c d e f Dave Andrews (18 December 2008). "History Is a Guide in Selecting Name for Faculty and Staff Housing Community". The Mason Gazette. Retrieved 21 March 2008.