| John Mason migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See Great Migration Begins, by R. C. Anderson, Vol. 2, p. 1225) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm |
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John Mason was a significant figure in the early history of both the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies. His initial activities were primarily military, but he extended his contributions to negotiations with the native american tribes and between colonies, and he held many civic offices.
In his thorough sketch of John Mason, Robert Charles Anderson finds him vigorous and direct in his writings, well-trained in military matters, and well-compensated with money and lands for his many services to the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies. Anderson finds nothing known about Mason's English origin, notes his military service in the Low Countries, sets his migration from England to Dorchester in 1632, followed by removal to Windsor in the group led by Thomas Hooker in 1635, and thence to Saybrook, Mystic, and ultimately Norwich in the Connecticut colony. Anderson notes Mason's decisive leadership in the Pequot War of 1636-7, and his many other activities--military, diplomatic, and civic--to protect the colonists. Anderson lists what is known about his two wives and nine children, and cites numerous sources.[1]
Perhaps 1600[2] but surely before 1605 based on military service in the Low Countries in the 1620s.[1], citing the Dictionary of American Biography. Perhaps (as alleged by some who cite no primary sources) in Dorchester, Oxfordshire, or Ravenshorpe, Northamptonshire or Hingham, County Norfolk, but surely in England. (Some secondary sources give his age at death as seventy-two, which would place his birth about 1600, but the source for this age is not known.)
Daniel Mason and Dorothy Hobart have been disconnected for lack of sourcing.
"He is supposed to have migrated to this country in 1630, with Mr. Warham's company that sailed from Plymouth, England, March 20th, and arrived at Nantasket May 30th of that years."[3] Clearly by 1632, based on his Dorchester activities.
Mason, John (c. 1600-Jan. 30, 1672), colonial soldier and magistrate, was born in England and saw service in the Low Countries. Soon after coming to Dorchester, Massachusetts he was assigned military duties. Later he was colonial Connecticut's first, and during his life, chief military figure.
John Mason was a lieutenant under Thomas Fairfax (later to become "Lord") with the English Army in the Netherlands[4] Mason and Fairfax, were with General Sir Horace de Vere's command at the siege of https://web.archive.org/web/20170701190004/http://www.fortified-places.com/boisleduc/ Bois-le-Duc] from the Spanish in 1629.[5] [6]
Coming to Massachusetts, he was before July 1633 made lieutenant of militia for Dorchester, engaged in December 1632 with John Gallop, by the Governor and Magistrates of Massachusetts, to search for and repel the pirate "Dixy Bull.", and rewarded with ten pounds for that sea-going search by the company in March 1633. [7][8]
He was the first and, during his life, the chief military officer of Connecticut. He removed, in 1635, to Windsor, CT, and after that was identified with all the leading events in the history of the Connecticut towns. He was the commander, and the hero, of the Pequot war in 1637. [9]
The Pequots under Sassacus dominated the neighboring Narragansetts, Wampanoags, and Mohegans and had been hostile to the colonists for some time when, in the autumn of 1636, open strife was precipitated by a fruitless expedition sent against them by Massachusetts. Colonists were killed, wounded or caprtured in repeated attacks. Their outrages became so flagrant that in May 1637 the Connecticut authorities were obliged to take the offensive, formally declared war, and assembled and provisioned a small army. Mason was dispatched with eighty white men and one hundred Indian auxiliaries led by Uncas (later fictionalized as the Last of the Mohicans) to invade the heart of their domain. At Saybrook Fort, Capt. John Underhill joined him with nineteen Massachusetts men. Mason boldly decided upon the indirect approach of going first past the Pequot territory to Narragansett Bay and then marching overland, joined by hundreds of Narragansetts, to strike where he would be less expected. By a combination of good judgment and good fortune he took the Pequots completely by surprise. attacking their fort before dawn,
The fort was circular in form and about two acres extent, surrounded by a palisade, and contained about seventy wigwams. It had but two openings, opposite sides and were made difficult of entrance by the use of branches of trees. The Indian warriors were aroused by the barking of a dog as the colonists approached. Captain Mason aided by Lieutenant Seeley pushed aside brush which obstructed the passage and entered fort with sixteen men. Captain Underhill and his men entered the other side at about the same moment. The Indians were panic stricken by the suddenness of the attack and the English used their swords and muskets with deadly effect. By a quick resolve of Mason, fire brands were applied to the material of the wigwams and the whole interior soon a mass of flame and smoke. The English then encircled the fort and the Indian allies formed an outer circle to prevent the escape of any fugitive. Of the Pequots between six and seven hundred (warriors, older men, women, and children) perished in the fort, seven escaped and seven were captured. Of the English only two were killed, twenty wounded. The few who escaped, and the remaining Pequots from another fort, led by their sachem Sassacus, fled to the west. They were pursued by Mason's forces and Indians from other tribes, and the last of them defeated in a swamp near Fairfield, their sachems killed by other tribes and the survivors sold into slavery. The power of the Pequots was broken. [9]
Charles Orr wrote, in 1897: "Nothing could be more dreadful than the slaughter and burning on that eventful night. It forms a page in our history too terrible to dwell upon, except in the light of its results, and this was the attitude of all the early settlers toward the event. They believed that there was justification for extreme measures and that the end justified the means."[9], page xviii. The Pequots saw things differently, of course, seeing the colonists as invaders and their tactics as, well, dreadful. And the neighboring tribes who allied with Mason's forces on this occasion, who benefited in the short run, also came to regret that.
One night in 1660 "at ye New Plantation [Norwich], some Indians, as will, of the Narragansetts, shot 11 bullets into a house of our English there, in hopes, as they boasted, to have slaine him whome we have cause to honor, whose safety we cannot but take ourselves bound to promote, our Deputy Govr Major Mason. [10]
After the war Mason was promoted to the rank of major. For over thirty years after 1637 Mason took a prominent part in Connecticut affairs. . His services as the savior of the infant colony were recognized by the General Court at Hartford, which appointed him "the public military officer of the Plantations of Connecticut", with a salary of 40 pounds per annum, a position which he held for 35 years. During most of that time he handled Indian relations both for it and for the New England Confederation.
He prepared, at the request of the General Court of Connecticut, an very readable account of the Pequot War, which was published by Increase Mather in 1677, and reprinted from the original by Mr. Thomas Prince in 1735 in more complete form, with the prefaces and some explanatory notes and further reprinted, together with other accounts, and further notes, in an 1897 volume edited by Charles Orr.[9]
The State of Connecticut erected in 1889 a statue to commemorate the 1637 expedition. It was erected on the crest of Pequot Hill, near the west bank of the Mystic river, not far from the location of the Indian fort. The inscription on the panelled base is:
In 1966, at the request of the resurrected Pequot tribe, that memorial statue (depicted at right) was removed to the Palisado in Windsor, Connecticut.[11]
He became a Freeman of Dorchester on 4 March 1634/5 (as “Captain John Mason”) [12].
He removed to Windsor, Connecticut in 1636 with the company led there by Rev. Thomas Hooker.
In 1647, at the special instance and request of the inhabitants, Capt. John Mason removed to Saybrook from Windsor, and was thereupon appointed by the colony to the military command of the post. He was empowered to receive the fort and its appurtenances from Fenwick, who had apparently been left in possession until this time. This fort was built of wood. It caught fire in the winter of 1647, and was consumed, with the dwelling-house connected with it. Capt. Mason, with his wife and child, narrowly escaped from the flames."
In 1650, the General Court granted him substantial lands in Mystic, including the island now known as Mason's Island, and perhaos he lived there for a time.
In 1659 or 1660, he helped found Norwich and removed there. “Major John Mason” appears in the 9 October 1669 list of Connecticut freemen in Norwich [CCCR 2:523]. But he was doubtless made a Freeman in Connecticut long before that.
In 1663, the General Court granted to Major John Mason of Norwich one more tract of land for his services to the colony. Mason selected a tract of 500 acres northwest of Norwich, in what is now the Goshen section of Lebanon, at a place along the Yantic River that the Indians called Pomocook. It was on the Hockanum Path, the Indian path from Norwich to the Connecticut River. That was the first land grant in what would later become the town of Lebanon. In 1666, the colony granted the Rev. James Fitch, the minister in Norwich and Mason’s son-in-law, l20 acres adjoining Major Mason’s land.
Mason was not just a military man, he was also a civic leader. Beginning in 1632. He held many civil offices. A partial list follows.
In Massachusetts Bay, He represented Dorchester in the General Court from 4 March 1634/5, until 2 September 1635. [13]. He was member of a board appointed in September 1634 to plan the fortifications of Boston Harbour, and was especially in charge of the erection of the works on Castle Island, one of the most important points. (Now Fort Independence.)
In Connecticut, from 1637-1641, he represented Windsor in the General Court, [CT Civil List 35], in Saybrook and then Norwich, he was Magistrate and/or Assistant,from 1641-1659; from 1659 he was Lieutenant Governor for 10 years, after which he declined re-election; for two of those years, during Gov. Winthrop's absence in England upon the Charter business, he was acting Governor. In 1662 He was one of the patentees of Connecticut Conony's Royal Charter [CT Civil List 36] He presided over the newly formed New London County Court from 1666 through 1670. [CT Civil List 35]
After stepping aside from his many civic duties due to his terminal illness, Major Mason, Plaintiff, sued Amos Richardson in 1671 charging him with slander and defamation for saying he was a traytor and [had] damnified the Collonie one thousand pounds.' The County Court held in New London, (the same court that Mason had led until the previous year) found in Mason's favor, but the action was not concluded until after Mason's death in 1672.
His first wife, name unknown, died in Windsor, prior to Mar. 16, 1638, leaving a daughter, and in July 1639 he married Anne Peck in Hingham.[14] He had seven children by his second wife.
He died Jan. 30, 1671-2,[2]in the seventy-third year of his age. He was ill for a year beforehand with, according to the "History of Ancient Windsor", "one of the most painful of diseases." At a guess, perhaps bone cancer.His last hours reportedly were cheered by the prayers and counsels of his beloved pastor and son-in-law, Mr. Fitch.
Major John Mason was likely buried in what is now (2018) called the Founders' Cemetery, on West Town Street in Norwich just off the Connecticut Turnpike. No stones remain, but his name is listed second, after his son-in-law Rev. James Avery, on the list of founders on the historical plaque there.[11] At the Norwich Bicentennial of 1859, a monument was erected to his memory on the bank of the Yantic, about 1-1/2 miles from the site of his house and farm.
"His last will, and the inventory of his estate, were exhibited in court, June 4th, 1672. 'the names and ages of the children of Major Mason' are thus stated in the Norwich Records." [15]
With first wife, whose name is not yet known:
With second wife Ann Peck Mason :
See Also:
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I think anyone who has looked at it agrees there is no support for the oft-repeated but likely erroneous references to Daniel Mason and Dorothy Hobart as parents of Major John Mason (b.1600). However, I have come across a few other suggestions that I wonder if others have considered the following:
1. Wikipedia claims Mason was born in Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire, England, and that hisbaptism is recorded in the St. Deny's church records on October 5, 1600 and lists his father as Richard Mason, who was married on May 23, 1600 in Ravensthorpe to Alis Burlyn (Burlyn is probably an error for Butlyn because Alis Butlyn was baptized in Ravensthorpe on September 9. 1576). As far as I can tell, this link was made solely by someone finding a baptismal record for a “John Mason” somewhere in England in 1600. If that is all, I think this is dubious as there are many “John Masons” in England around that time. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=9198&h=1565378&tid=6811190&pid=-1221181011&queryId=28f7b2810eb995a4660e1d4686853b7c&usePUB=true&_phsrc=DAN16&_phstart=successSource
2. In a comment on FamilySearch, someone has pointed out a few “clues” (without clear sourcing or context) that led him to a conclusion that “Henry Mason, son of Henry Rice Mason,” is John Mason’s father. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/collaborate/KNHX-1CT
PGM group please note that there are issues with Mason's descendancy in WikiTree in the daughter Isreal's Bissell line at Phebe Bissell for which see that profile and the attached g2g.
Hartford Colony Connecticut Saybrook Colony, Connecticut New Have Colony, Connecticut Bonus source: Journals of William Bradford 1590-1657, Colonial Governor first wife: Dorothy May 1597-1620, second wife Alice Carpenter 1590-1670