Beverley Randolph Mason - Educator

Educator

A the close of the war, Major Mason engaged in business and as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he took up the profession of teaching. For a period of time after the war, Mason taught at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Afterward, he returned Virginia, where in 1875, he married Elizabeth "Bettie" Harrison Nelson of Albemarle County. Mason then taught as a teacher in mathematics and Latin at the Norwood Institute.

Mason and his wife relocated to Washington, D.C. where they both engaged in teaching and founded a school for young ladies known as the Gunston Hall School, named for the homestead of his great-grandfather George Mason. Gunston Hall School was located at 3017 O Street, N.W. in a large yellow Georgetown mansion that was the former residence of Commodore Stephen Cassin, built in the early 19th century. Mason and his wife opened their school in the mansion in 1893 for their children and the children of their intimate friends. In 1905, Mason moved Gunston Hall School to a Colonial edifice at 1906 Florida Avenue near 19th and T Streets, N.W.

The Washington Post hailed Mason's Gunston Hall School as the "foremost among Washington's institutions for the education of girls and young ladies." Gunston Hall School continued as a flourishing boarding school for young women for 50 years. After its closure, the building housed Epiphany School, an Episcopal institution. The building is currently the home of the National Museum of American Jewish Military History. Mason's character impressed itself upon his students and his influence among them was widely felt and acknowledged by the students of successive years.