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John Thomson Mason (15 March 1765 – 10 December 1824) was an American lawyer and Attorney General of Maryland in 1806.

Early life

Mason was born on 15 March 1765 at Chopawamsic in Stafford County, Virginia. He was the third child and youngest son of Thomson Mason and his wife Mary King Barnes.

Education

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Early career

Mason operated a plantation in what was then Washington County, Maryland near Elizabethtown (now Hagerstown using enslaved labor.

Admitted to the Maryland bar, he attained high rank, but twice declined the office of United States Attorney General when it was offered by Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Mason ran for one of Maryland's seats in the United States Senate, but lost. He then served as Attorney General of Maryland in 1806. He was also one of six judges appointed to a newly restructured court of appeals by Governor Robert Bowie on 19 January 1806, but declined the appointment.

Marriages and children

Mason married Elizabeth Beltzhoover in 1797. He and Elizabeth had seven children:

• Mary Barnes Mason Winter (c. 1800–11 May 1844)
• Elizabeth Ann Armistead Thomson Mason Wharton (4 April 1803–20 January 1857)
• Abram Barnes Mason Barnes (21 October 1807–10 April 1863)
• Melchior Beltzhoover Mason (born 3 October 1812)
• John Thomson Mason, Jr. (9 May 1815–28 March 1873)
• Thomson Mason (15 July 1818–1848)
• Virginia Wallace Mason (16 April 1820–6 October 1858)

Later life

Mason died on 10 December 1824 at the age of 59. Mason was interred at his Montpelier estate in Clear Spring, Maryland.

Relations

John Thomson Mason was a nephew of George Mason (1725–1792); son of Thomson Mason (1733–1785); brother of Stevens Thomson Mason (1760–1803); half-brother of William Temple Thomson Mason (1782–1862); first cousin of George Mason V (1753–1796); first cousin once removed of Thomson Francis Mason (1785–1838), George Mason VI (1786–1834), Richard Barnes Mason (1797–1850), and James Murray Mason (1798–1871); uncle of Armistead Thomson Mason (1787–1819) and John Thomson Mason (1787–1850); father of John Thomson Mason Jr. (1815–1873); and great uncle of Stevens Thomson Mason (1811–1843).

References

1. ^ Gunston Hall. "John Thomson Mason". Gunston Hall. Archived from the original on 11 February 2008. Retrieved 15 February 2008.
2. ^ The Political Graveyard (16 June 2008). "Mason family of Virginia". The Political Graveyard. Retrieved 7 March 2009.
3. The Library of Virginia has a slave importation certificate recorded in Frederick County, Maryland on 3 March 1794 https://lva.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma990005037370205756&context=L&vid=01LVA_INST:01LVA&lang=en&search_scope=MyInstitution_noAER&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=LibraryCatalog&query=any,contains,mason,%20thomson&offset=0
4. ^ The Colonial Dames of America (1910). Ancestral Records and Portraits: A Compilation from the Archives of Chapter I, the Colonial Dames of America. Boston, Massachusetts: Grafton Press. p. 808.
5. John Thomas Scharf, "Judges of the Court of Appeals", History of Maryland from the Earliest Period to the Present Day (1879), p. 773.
6. Federal Writers' Project (1976). Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State. US History Publishers. ISBN 1-60354-019-9.

• 1765 births
• 1824 deaths
• 18th-century American Episcopalians
• 19th-century American Episcopalians
• American people of English descent
• American planters
• American slave owners
• Maryland attorneys general
• Maryland lawyers
• Mason family
• People from Stafford County, Virginia
• United States Attorneys for the District of Columbia