Chapter I: 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]