Early Life in Virginia and Kentucky
Mason was born near Leesburg in Loudoun County, Virginia, into a politically powerful family. His great-grandfather, Thomson Mason (1730–1785) was chief justice of the Virginia supreme court and brother of George Mason (1725–1792), who took part in the Constitutional Convention. His grandfather, Stevens Thomson Mason, was a U.S. Senator from Virginia. His uncle, Armistead Thomson Mason (1787–1819), was also a U.S. Senator from Virginia. His uncles by marriage, Benjamin Howard (1760–1814) and William Taylor Barry (1784–1835), both served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and were U.S. Representatives from Kentucky. Howard was Governor of Louisiana (Missouri) Territory, 1810–12 and Governor of Missouri Territory, 1812–13. Barry served as U.S. Senator from Kentucky, 1814–16 and then had a long career in a number of Kentucky government positions, and ultimately became Postmaster General, 1829–35.
In 1812, Mason’s father, John Thomson Mason (1787–1850), left the Mason family stronghold in Virginia to attempt to make his own fortune in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1817, President James Monroe appointed the elder Mason United States marshal. While his business ventures were a complete failure and the family became nearly broke in the 1820s, he was a lawyer and land agent from an influential family, and went on to become an important figure in the Texas Revolution.
Read more about this topic: Stevens T. Mason
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