Colonel Stevens Thomson Mason (December 29, 1760May 10, 1803) was an American lawyer, military officer and planter who served in the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

during the Revolutionary War. Mason was also a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly and a Republican U.S. Senator from 1794 to 1803.

Early and family life

Mason was born to Thomson Mason (1733–1785); and his wife at

Chopawamsic Chopawamsic Island is one of the few islands in the Potomac River within the territorial boundaries of the Commonwealth of Virginia. History Once known as Scott's Island, little is known about its history prior to the 1900s due to Stafford Cou ...

in Stafford County, Virginia. His ancestors had emigrated generations earlier and owned thousands of acres of land (some developed and farmed by enslaved labor) in Maryland and Virginia. His maternal great grandfather was an attorney and significant landowner in Maryland, and (his grandmother) Ann Eilbeck Mason was his only heir, and determined to provide for her younger sons (including Thomson Mason) by securing land and slaves. His uncle George Mason IV had inherited the Mason family estates by

primogeniture Primogeniture ( ) is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relativ ...

in 1735 (though then underage, he took control upon reaching legal majority). His grandmother invested in real estate being developed along the Potomac River in Loudoun County, which by the time of her death may have exceeded the lands his uncle inherited by primogeniture. After education by private tutors as a boy, he and his brothers also had access to the library of his lawyer uncle John Mercer near Fredericksburg. Stevens T. Mason then traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia for higher education at the College of William & Mary, concentrating in legal studies.

Officer, lawyer and planter

Admitted to the Virginia bar, Mason began a private legal practice in Dumfries, Virginia in Prince William County. His uncle George Mason was one of his clients until his death in 1792. Especially after his father's 1785 death at the family's Raspberry Plain plantation in what had become Loudoun County, Mason operated farms using enslaved labor, as would his descendants. In the 1787 Virginia tax census, Stevens T. Mason owned 33 slaves over 16 years of age, as well as 38 slaves under age 18, 28 horses, 76 cattle, 4 wheeled vehicles and a stud horse. During the American Revolutionary War, as his uncle George served in the Virginia General Assembly and drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights as well as the first Virginia constitution and state seal, Stevens Mason served as an officer in the Continental Army and in the Virginia militia. By the

Battle of Yorktown The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German battle (from the presence of Germans in all three armies), beginning on September 28, 1781, and ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virgi ...

, he was a brigadier general in the Virginia militia as well as an aide to General

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

Political career

Following the war, Loudoun County voters elected him as one of their (part-time) representatives in the Virginia State House of Delegates in 1783, and he served alongside veteran John Carter, although neither won re-election the following year. In 1787 he won election to the Virginia State Senate representing Loudoun and nearby Fauquier Counties (thus serving in 4 General Assembly sessions), but failed to win re-election in 1791, being replaced by veteran politician Francis Peyton. Meanwhile Stevens Thomson Mason also won election (alongside Levin Powell) as Loudoun County's delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention in 1788, during which his uncle (one of Stafford County's representatives) unsuccessfully fought against ratification, but ultimately caused Virginia's congressional delegates to propose the Bill of Rights modeled on his Virginia Declaration of Rights and which was approved as a Constitutional amendment. Less than two years following his uncle's death, in 1794, Loudoun County voters returned Stevens Thomson Mason to the Virginia House of Delegates. Fellow legislators elected him to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Monroe. Stevens Thomson Mason won re-election in 1797 and again in 1803, and thus served from 18 November 1794, until his death in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While in the Senate Mason handed a copy of the secret Jay Treaty to

Pierre Adét Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

, French minister to the United States. The senator along with Senator Pierce Butler leaked the document to the American press.Green, Nathaniel C. “‘The Focus of the Wills of Converging Millions’: Public Opposition to the Jay Treaty and the Origins of the People’s Presidency.” ''Journal of the Early Republic'', vol. 37, no. 3, 2017, p. 459
JSTOR website
Retrieved 21 Dec. 2022. Since his country was at war with Great Britain and hated the idea of a treaty of “amity” between her and the United States, Adét gave the document to Benjamin Bache, publisher of The Aurora — a newspaper — with the hope of raising just the sort of public outcry that ensued—and even, perhaps, of blocking ratification of the treaty.

Death and legacy

He is interred in the family burying ground at Raspberry Plain in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Marriage and children

Mason married Mary Elizabeth Armistead on May 1, 1783. The couple had six children: * John Thomson Mason (January 8, 1787 – April 17, 1850) * Armistead Thomson Mason (1787 – February 6, 1819) *Stevens Thomson Mason (1789 – 17 November 1815) *Mary Thomson Mason (1791–1813) *Emily Rutger Mason (1793–1837) *Catherine Mason (born 1795)

Relations

Brother of John Thomson Mason (1765–1824); half-brother of

William Temple Thomson Mason William Temple Thomson Mason (July 24, 1782 – 1862) was a prominent Virginia farmer and businessman. Early life William Temple Thomson Mason was born on July 24, 1782, at Raspberry Plain. "Temple", as his family called him, was Thomson Mason' ...

(1782–1862); first cousin of

George Mason V George Mason V (April 30, 1753December 5, 1796) was an American planter, businessman, and militia officer. Mason was the eldest son of United States patriot, statesman, and delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, George Ma ...

(1753–1796); first cousin once removed of Thomson Francis Mason (1785–1838),

George Mason VI The Mason family of Virginia is a historically significant American political family of English origin, whose prominent members are known for their accomplishments in politics, business, and the military. The progenitor of the Mason family, Georg ...

(1786–1834), Richard Barnes Mason (1797–1850), and James Murray Mason (1798–1871); father of Armistead Thomson Mason (1787–1819) and John Thomson Mason (1787–1850); uncle of John Thomson Mason Jr. (1815–1873); and grandfather of

Stevens Thomson Mason Stevens Thomson Mason (October 27, 1811 – January 4, 1843) was an American politician who served as the first governor of Michigan from 1835 to 1840. Coming to political prominence at an early age, Mason was appointed his territory's ...

(1811–1843), first governor of Michigan. His great granddaughter

Kate Mason Rowland Kate Mason Rowland (June 22, 1840 – June 28, 1916) was an American author, historian, genealogist, biographer, editor and historic preservationist. Rowland is best known for her biography of her great-great-granduncle, George Mason, a Founding ...

would be one of the founding members of the

Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

and also write a two-volume biography of George Mason IV.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Stevens Thomson 1760 births 1803 deaths 18th-century American Episcopalians 19th-century American Episcopalians American people of English descent American planters American slave owners British North American Anglicans Businesspeople from Virginia Continental Army officers from Virginia Delegates to the Virginia Ratifying Convention 18th-century American politicians Democratic-Republican Party United States senators Mason family Members of the Virginia House of Delegates People from Stafford County, Virginia College of William & Mary alumni United States senators from Virginia Virginia Democratic-Republicans Virginia lawyers Virginia state senators People from Dumfries, Virginia United States senators who owned slaves