George Mason was the American progenitor of the prominent American landholding and political Mason family.
Background
The first known mention of him in the colonial records is in a patent of March 1655 for land in Westmoreland County, head rights for eighteen persons brought into Virginia. In 1664 and again in 1669 he secured large tracts of adjacent lands on Potomac Creek at the mouth of Accoceek, where he had his dwelling. In a deposition dated August 20, 1658, he declared his age to be twenty-nine, thus establishing approximately the date of his birth. From another record of Westmoreland (1655) his wife is known to have been named Mary. His son, George, was active in Stafford County affairs. A will of the date of 1686, known to have been on file in Stafford before 1840, is assumed to be that of the first George Mason, and it is therefore inferred that his death occurred in that year.
Career
In 1667 Mason was active on the Northern Neck committee charged with the defense and local government of that region, and a member of the committee representing the counties of Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Stafford to carry out an act of the Assembly providing for the erection of a fort on Yeocomico River. He was sheriff of Stafford County in 1669, clerk of the court in 1673, and was sent as a burgess to the Assembly of 1676, which passed the measures known as "Bacon's Laws, " democratic in tone and designed to correct certain abuses of the administration. He held the office of county lieutenant, and, doughty and daring, he and his aggressive neighbors often took the law in their own hands in defense of northern Virginia against the Indians. In 1661-62, with Col. Gerard Fowke, Capt. Giles Brent, and John Lord, he was subjected to disciplinary measures imposed by the Assembly for what it considered unjust treatment of Wahanganoche, king of the Potomac Indians. Mason was ordered to pay damages to the Indian king and to the public treasury for contempt of the Governor's warrant and was suspended from all civil and military power until he could clear himself of Wahanganoche's charges. He and his recalcitrant neighbors, however, formed the governing group in northern Virginia, and they were returned to official favor. It is as an Indian fighter and precipitator of events culminating in Bacon's Rebellion that Mason is chiefly remembered. When, in 1675, a band of Doegs made raids in his community and finally killed a neighbor, Mason and Col. Giles Brent gathered about thirty men and pursued the murderers into Maryland. There Brent attacked the Doegs, who had taken refuge in a cabin among the Susquehannocks, and Mason with his men pursued the Indians who fled from a neighboring cabin. When he discovered the Indians were the friendly Susquehannocks, Mason cried out, "for the Lords sake shoot no more, these are our friends the Susquehanoughs. " Unwittingly, however, he had set loose a chain of circumstances that provoked the Susquehannocks to take the war path and resulted in Bacon's Rebellion. Mason agreed to fight under Bacon's command against the Indians, but he had no sympathy with the young radical's democratic program. When, therefore, it was clear that Bacon's leadership meant opposition to the established government, Mason took no part in the campaigns. It is significant that the troops from Stafford were loyal to Berkeley and helped to put down the young rebel's forces. With his neighbors of position and power, among them Col. William Ball and Col. John Washington, Mason served in 1677 on the committee ordered by the Assembly to lay a levy in the Northern Neck for the costs of suppressing "the late rebellion. "
Achievements
George I was a Cavalier in England's Parliament. He was a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and King Charles II. George I was a member of the House of Burgesses, in 1670 he was the second Stafford County Sheriff, a Justice of the Peace, Colonel in the Stafford County militia, planter and businessman.
Personality
In his later years Mason continued to be a successful landholder and official, carving out an inheritance for his heirs and giving dignity to the family name. George Mason I was the great grandfather of one of America's Founding Fathers, George Mason IV.
Connections
George Mason I was married twice and had two children: Mary (French) Mason and George had one son George II (1660-1716). Frances Norgrave and George had one daughter Sarah E. Mason born in 1672. Sarah later married Thomas Barbee.
Father:
Thomas Mason
Mother:
Ann French
Wife:
Mary French
Wife:
Frances Norgrave
Daughter:
Sarah E. Mason
Son:
George Mason II
1660—1716
Was an early American planter and statesman.
great-grandson :
George Mason
December 11, 1725 – October 7, 1792
Was a Virginia planter and politician, and a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of three delegates, together with fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who refused to sign the constitution.
