Stevens T. Mason - Life and Politics in Michigan Territory

Life and Politics in Michigan Territory

John Mason was appointed Secretary of Michigan Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson. Young Stevens was more politically savvy than his father and helped to protect him from schemes launched by anti-Jackson forces. This gained him notice from the Territorial Governor, Lewis Cass. In 1831, President Jackson sent his father on a mission to Mexico and named Stevens to replace his father as Secretary, at the age of nineteen before he could even vote. At about the same time, Governor Cass became Jackson’s Secretary of War. George Bryan Porter was named to replace Cass, but he was frequently absent and Mason was, for all practical purposes, the acting governor during this time, leading to his nickname of the "Boy Governor."

Mason was influential in petitioning for Michigan statehood. When the first petition in 1832 was not acted upon, Mason commissioned a territorial census. When the census was completed in 1834, it determined that 86,000 people lived in the lower peninsula, more than the 60,000 required for statehood by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. A dispute over a strip of land, the Toledo Strip, claimed by both Michigan and Ohio led to the Toledo War. President Jackson appointed Benjamin Chew Howard of Baltimore, and Richard Rush of Philadelphia to serve on a commission to arbitrate the dispute but could not persuade Mason to back down. Not wanting to alienate political support in Ohio, President Jackson removed Mason from office in 1835 and appointed John S. (“Little Jack”) Horner as his replacement.