Early Life and Career
John S. Mason was born in Steubenville, Ohio, in the late summer of 1824. His father was a prominent physician who had been a military surgeon during the War of 1812. He was educated in the local schools began his college studies at Kenyon College in Gambier. In the winter of 1842, he transferred to Washington College in Pennsylvania. However, he withdrew when he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, on July 1, 1843. He graduated 9th of 38 cadets in the Class of 1847 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 3rd U. S. Artillery. Among his classmates were future Civil War generals A.P. Hill, Henry Heth, John Gibbon, and Ambrose Burnside.
With the Mexican War raging, he was assigned to garrison duty at Tampico, Mexico, where he contracted yellow fever. After spending time in Cincinnati, Ohio, recovering, he returned to Mexico to Puebla as a commissary officer. He survived a second severe bout with yellow fever in New Orleans at the end of the war. He later served in a variety of posts, including Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island, Fort Yuma, several garrisons in California, and finally at Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory. He was a quartermaster from June 1854 until June 1858, and was promoted to first lieutenant in September 1860.
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