George Mason III (1690March 5, 1735) was an American planter, military officer, legislator and government official. Although he repeatedly won election to represent Stafford County in the then-one-house

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 16 ...

, he may today be best known as the father of

George Mason IV George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including ...

, a

Founding Father of the United States The Founding Fathers of the United States, known simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the war for independence from Great Britai ...

Early life

Mason was born in 1690 at Chopawamsic

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

Stafford County, Virginia Stafford County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is a suburb outside of Washington D.C. It is approximately south of D.C. It is part of the Northern Virginia region, and the D.C area. It is one of the fastest growing, and highest- ...

. He was the eldest son of

George Mason II George Mason II (1660–1716) was an early American planter and officeholder who, although his father's only child, had many children and thus can be said to have established the Mason family as one of the First Families of Virginia. His grandson ...

and his first wife Mary Fowke.

Planter and politician

At the time of his father's death in 1716, Mason was 27 and already a man of prominence in Stafford County. Like his father, Mason increased the family's property and social standing in Stafford County and across the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...

in Maryland by strategic marriage as well as continuing the family's traditions of leadership and public service. Like his father, Mason served as a colonel in the Stafford County militia and represented Stafford County as one of its two delegates in the

House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been establishe ...

continually between 1715 and 1726Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond: Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 49, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 73. During his tenure as a burgess in Williamsburg, Mason met and married his wife Ann Stevens Thomson, whose family owned plantations in Maryland. Like his father and grandfather, this George Mason became Stafford's County Lieutenant of Stafford (in 1719), and also served as the county's sheriff. Mason amassed enormous land holdings in Stafford, Fauquier,

Prince William William, Prince of Wales, (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982) is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. Born in London, William was educa ...

, and Fairfax counties in Virginia. Mason also increased his land holdings by acquiring large grants south of the

Occoquan River The Occoquan River is a tributary of the Potomac River in Northern Virginia, where it serves as part of the boundary between Fairfax and Prince William counties. The river is a scenic area, and several local high schools and colleges use the r ...

, which were later named Woodbridge by his grandson Thomas Mason. Mason leased most of his properties out as smaller farms with their rent paid in

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

yield. Mason also earned income from fisheries and a ferry service carrying

King's Highway King's Highway or Kings Highway may refer to: Roads Australia * Kings Highway (Australia), connecting Queanbeyan to Batemans Bay Canada * King's Highways, an alternative designation for the primary provincial highway system in Ontario * King's ...

across the

. Because Mason owned land on both sides of the Occoquan River, he enjoyed a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

on river crossings as well as on the fishing rights in

Belmont Bay Belmont Bay is a body of water at the mouth of the Occoquan River between Fairfax and Prince William counties, Virginia. The bay covers about . The bay adjoins the Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge and Mason Neck State Park on ...

. In 1716, Mason accompanied the "

Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, also known as the Transmontane Expedition, took place in 1716 in the British Colony of Virginia. The Royal Governor and a number of prominent citizens traveled westward, across the Blue Ridge Moun ...

" led by Lt. Governor

Alexander Spotswood Alexander Spotswood (12 December 1676 – 7 June 1740) was a British Army officer, explorer and lieutenant governor of Colonial Virginia; he is regarded as one of the most significant historical figures in British North American colonial h ...

across the Blue Ridge and into the Shenandoah Valley, where his famous son would invest.

Marriage and children

Mason married Ann Stevens Thomson, daughter of Stevens Thomson and his wife Dorothea, in 1721. The couple had three children: *

(11 December 1725–7 October 1792) *Mary Thomson Mason Selden (1731–5 January 1758) *

Thomson Mason Thomson Mason (14 August 173326 February 1785) was an American lawyer, planter and jurist. A younger brother of George Mason IV, United States patriot, statesman, and delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, Thomson Mason wo ...

(14 August 1733–26 February 1785) A few years after his marriage to Ann, Mason moved his family to Stump Neck plantation in

Charles County Charles County is a county in Southern Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 166,617. The county seat is La Plata. The county was named for Charles Calvert (1637–1715), third Baron Baltimore. Charles County is part of the Wash ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, relegating the Chopawamsic estate in Stafford County, Virginia, to a secondary residence.

Later life

Mason drowned when a storm capsized his boat while crossing the

between plantations on 5 March 1735. Soon after his death, Mason's widow and children returned to Chopawamsic. When this George Mason died, he owned in Stafford County alone.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, George 03 1690 births 1735 deaths American people of English descent American planters American slave owners British North American Anglicans Businesspeople from Maryland Businesspeople from Virginia Deaths by drowning Deaths due to shipwreck George Mason House of Burgesses members People of colonial Maryland Mason family People from Stafford County, Virginia Virginia sheriffs