The Five George Masons

By Pamela C. Copeland and Richard K McMaster

A Founding Father, a patriot in the Revolutionary War, a delegate from Virginia to the Constitutional Convention, and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the U.S. Bill of Rights, George Mason (1725-1792) worked passionately and diligently throughout his life, both as a private citizen and as a public servant, to ensure that government protected the inherent rights of the people. The Five George Masons, first published in 1975, provides a comprehensive overview of five generations of the Mason family, beginning with George Mason I, who fled England following the defeat of the Royalists at the second battle of Worcester in 1651, arriving in the Colony of Virginia in the early 1650s. Central to this volume, of course, is George Mason IV, who, while less celebrated than his fellow Virginians George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, was one of America’s outstanding thinkers, legislators, and writers; his ideals and legacy endure to this day.

This second edition includes a new foreword as well as color photos and maps, while faithfully reproducing the original edition’s unique genealogical charts of the Mason family. In tracing the family history of the Masons, the book provides important context for understanding the life and work of George Mason IV, who wrote: "All men are by nature equally free and inde¬pendent, and have certain inherent rights." The Five George Masons serves as a uniquely valuable resource for histo¬rians, educators, genealogists, and all those interested in the history of Virginia and the early United States.

Distributed for the George Mason University Press

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Mason University
• Release date: Mar 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781942695011

Book preview

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THE FIVE

GEORGE

MASONS

Patriots and

Planters of

Virginia and

Maryland

VirDecRights_p100_bw_high-res.tif

Excerpt of the ratified Virginia Declaration of Rights,

from the published Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates,

Held at the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg, in the Colony of Virginia;

Convened on Monday, the 6th of May, 1776

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THE FIVE

GEORGE

MASONS

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Patriots and

Planters of

Virginia and

Maryland

Pamela C. Copeland and Richard K. MacMaster

SECOND EDITION

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George Mason University Press

Fairfax, Virginia

Published with the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2016 by George Mason University Press

and the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-942695-00-4 (Trade Paper)

ISBN: 978-1-942695-01-1 (Ebook)

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form without

permission of the publisher, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of

the 1976 United States Copyright Act.

Frontispiece: Excerpt of the ratified Virginia Declaration of Rights,

from the published Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates,

Held at the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg, in the Colony of Virginia;

Convened on Monday, the 6th of May, 1776

First edition published 1975. The University Press of Virginia.

Second edition published 2016. George Mason University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-942695-00-4

Copeland, Pamela C 1906–.

The Five George Masons: Patriots and Planters of Virginia and Maryland /

Pamela C. Copeland and Richard K. MacMaster. — 2nd ed.: p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Mason, George, 1725–1792. 2. Mason family. 3. Virginia history. 4. Gunston Hall.

I. MacMaster, Richard Keith, 1935– joint author.

II. Board of Regents of Gunston Hall. III. Title.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introductory Note by Ángel Cabrera vii

Foreword to the Second Edition ix

Preface to First Edition xiii

Chapter One

Colonel George Mason I 1

Chapter Two

Colonel George Mason II 19

Chapter Three

Colonel George Mason III 50

Chapter Four

George Mason IV: Country Gentleman 88

Chapter Five

George Mason IV: Internal Improvements and Western Lands 119

Chapter Six

George Mason IV: Plantation Economy 159

Chapter Seven

George Mason IV: Civic and Parish Interests 177

Chapter Eight

George Mason IV: The American Revolution 189

Chapter Nine

George Mason IV: The Sage of Gunston Hall 229

Chapter Ten

George Mason IV: Siblings and Progeny 246

Chapter Eleven

Notes on Later Masons 274

Genealogical Tables 279

Notes 297

Bibliography and Abbreviations 325

Index 333

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Map: The Region of the Upper Potomac 3

Color Photo Gallery 151

Illustration: The opening of a letter

from George Mason of Gunston Hall 352

Introductory Note

by Ángel Cabrera

8555.png ITH PRIDE, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY, in collaboration with the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, is publishing this new second edition of The Five George Masons: Patriots and Planters of Virginia and Maryland. The legacy of the university’s namesake, George Mason, endures today and has continued relevance because he was a champion of individual rights and liberties. One of the founding fathers of the United States, he played a role in opposing the Stamp Act (1765) and helped direct Virginia through the Revolutionary War toward independence for the colonies. He is known as the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which he wrote in 1776 and which served as a model for the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights, the Constitution’s first ten amendments.

George Mason stood up for his principles and refused to take the easy route: he was one of only three members of the Philadelphia Convention who refused to sign the Constitution. This did not make him popular with his peers, including his old friend and neighbor George Washington, but he refused to endorse the document that he helped create because he believed it established a federal government that would be too powerful, because it did not end the slave trade, and because the constitution did not contain a bill of rights that secured the rights of individuals.

In the Virginia Declaration of Rights and his efforts in revising the laws of Virginia, George Mason made lasting contributions to the American tradition of individual liberty and limited government. His draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights began That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights . . . namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. This creed and the words he used to express it obviously inspired Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, which began with the immortal phrase: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Mason’s Declaration of Rights, as well as Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, likewise inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution, one of the founding documents in the human rights tradition.

Mason’s Declaration of Rights declared that power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people and that the people have the right to alter or abolish governments when they fail to secure common benefits and the safety of the people. It further asserted that politicians should serve a limited term and be replaced by others chosen in free elections; that legislative, executive, and judiciary bodies should be separate and independent; that trial by jury is a fundamental right; and that no man should be deprived of his property without his consent. These aspects and others of the Virginia Declaration of Rights were echoed in similar bills in other state constitutions and in the ten amendments added to the U.S. Constitution known collectively as the Bill of Rights.

The university’s motto, Freedom and Learning, was inspired by its namesake, George Mason. Freedom and learning are inseparable—you can’t have one without the other. This elemental truth is central to the mission of the university: we provide individuals with autonomy and liberty from ignorance, imbuing graduates with democratic ideals while remaining respectful of individual differences, rights, and liberties, empowering students who are committed to building a just, equitable, and prosperous society. Throughout his life, George Mason was deeply concerned with establishing good governance for his country. It is in the enduring spirit of his legacy of freedom and learning that we instill an innovative attitude, a culture of diversity, an entrepreneurial energy, and a pledge of accessibility—which we refer to by the acronym the Mason IDEA—here at George Mason University. And it is in this spirit that we are honored to publish this new edition of The Five George Masons.

ÁNGEL CABRERA

President

George Mason University

Foreword to the Second Edition

8600.png N 1975, THE BOARD OF REGENTS of Gunston Hall published the first edition of The Five George Masons: Patriots and Planters of Virginia and Maryland. Written by Pamela C. Copeland and Richard K. MacMaster, this seminal work provided a comprehensive overview of the Mason family beginning with George Mason I, who after fleeing England following the defeat of the Royalists at the second battle of Worcester in 1651, arrived in the Colony of Virginia sometime in 1651 or 1652.

Immediately after its initial publication in 1975, The Five George Masons became a popular and valuable resource for genealogists, historians, educators, and all those interested in the history of Virginia. Out of print since the 1980s, this book has remained of interest to a variety of individuals and is frequently requested for purchase in the Museum Shop at Gunston Hall or for review in our research library.

Its primary author, Mrs. Copeland, was a member of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America from Delaware and a former first regent of the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall. In writing the preface to the 1975 edition, Mrs. Copeland extended her thanks and appreciation to numerous individuals and organizations. While this assistance was certainly invaluable, Mrs. Copeland was the driving force—intellectually, scholarly, emotionally, organizationally, and spiritually—behind the production and publication of this important narrative. With tremendous appreciation for her expressions of thanks to so many others, any contemporary preface to this book would not be complete without remembering Mrs. Copeland and her contributions. Her vision, energy, and effort made this book possible and we are honored to both acknowledge her work and to breathe new vitality into her research.

We are proud of the republication of The Five George Masons for other reasons as well.

First, in many ways this effort represents an important renewal of Gunston Hall’s partnership with George Mason University. As edu­cational organizations of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Gunston Hall and the university share many common goals. Specifically, we are both dedicated to a belief in the value of a high-quality educational experience, to the importance of facilitated discourse as a fundamental aspect of learning, and to the premise that an education should be both physically and intellectually accessible and available to everyone. We also share a belief in an educational philosophy based on scholarship and authenticity, and a philosophy which includes personal exploration, discovery, and reflection. Finally, by virtue of our collective namesake, we proudly share a common dedication to the ideals and legacy represented by George Mason.

Second, George Mason’s life, story, and writings remain incredibly and profoundly relevant today. As a citizen and a public servant, Mason passionately and diligently worked to ensure that the rights of the people were central to government and that government did not infringe on these inherent rights. On a daily basis, the topic of rights and freedoms, governmental authority, the role of the people in government and society, citizen engagement, and the freedom of the press and of religion are front-page stories for all the major news outlets. On a more local level, questions of access to education, community activism, the role and purpose of government, and what constitutes the just enforcement of the law are sparking debate among groups of diverse stakeholders. Even internationally, we are riveted by attempts to forge democracy out of despotism, and by rebellions against tyranny and terrorism.

Mason, in his own place and time, lived all of these same struggles. Moreover, he was central to discussions of all of these same topics. In co-authoring the Fairfax Resolves with George Washington in 1774 he articulated grievances against a tyrannical monarch. In writing the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776 he expressed the fundamental rights of the people and he placed these rights and responsibilities within the broader context of the role and purpose of government. In documenting his objections to the US Constitution he employed an activist role which set a standard for dissent in a civil society. Mason remains central to the ideas, issues, and actions that define our society, culture, and our role as citizens. And Mason was and is an example of how we all struggle to apply what we believe to be true in a complex and an interconnected world. This relevance is perhaps Mason’s greatest legacy to us, and this relevance reinforces the importance of learning more about George Mason.

Third, as evidenced in this book and in many of George Mason’s writings, family was something which Mason valued very, very deeply. As such, this work helps us see Mason as more than a figure in our distant past. This work provides witness to Mason the person, a person above all else who identified his primary role as that of husband and father, and a person to whom we all can relate.

But while this book focuses on Mason’s literal family, it is also representative of his past, present, and future figurative family of individuals and organizations committed to sharing his story. This extended family includes among others, The National Society of the The Colonial Dames of America, the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Gunston Hall Board of Visitors, the staff and volunteers at Gunston Hall, and the staff, students, and alumni of George Mason University.

This extended family also includes all those who seek to learn more about Mason and who seek to act upon and fulfill the promise written by Mason in 1776 that all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights. Mason wrote these words in Article 1 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Gunston Hall hopes that its celebration of the 240th anniversary of the ratification of this significant document in 2016 will inspire a new generation of individuals to examine this first declaration and learn about Mason’s important contributions to our nation.

In closing, I am honored to extend a special thanks and appreciation to Ángel Cabrera, President, George Mason University; John Warren, Head, Mason Publishing Group/George Mason University Press; Mrs. Hilary Gripekoven, First Regent, the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, Inc.; and to Rebecca Martin, Director of Education and Guest Experiences, Gunston Hall for their support and active participation in this project. I am also pleased to thank all those at George Mason University who have helped guide this project and see it to fruition.

In particular, I am privileged to extend my appreciation to the entire Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, Inc. and to the full team at Gunston Hall. The passionate leadership, dedicated service, and enthusiastic commitment to our organization, this project, and to telling the story of George Mason by all these individuals is inspirational.

Finally, I would like to once again honor Mrs. Copeland for writing this book and say that we all feel privileged to help once again make it publically available.

Thank you, please enjoy this fascinating book, and we look forward to seeing you at Gunston Hall.

SCOTT STROH

Executive Director

Gunston Hall, Virginia

Preface to First Edition

8607.png HIS BOOK IS THE OUTGROWTH of research efforts to help the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall appropriately furnish the home of George Mason and better interpret its history through a greater knowledge of Mason’s personal life, business enterprises, and political activities. The undertaking soon proved to require more research than I had the time to do. Francis Henninger, who was then a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, was engaged by the Board of Regents to assist me in this work. Mr. Henninger collated the papers in the files at Gunston Hall and then interviewed many members of the Mason family in Virginia and Kentucky concerning their early ancestry. When Francis Henninger accepted a teaching position at the University of Dayton, he was succeeded by Richard K. MacMaster, Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University. He continued the research under my direction, traveling to California to interview Mason descendants and to England to check many court and parish records. But just as Mr. Henninger entered the academic world, so did Mr. MacMaster, at Western Carolina University in North Carolina. It then became necessary to ask Mr. Dale Fields and Mrs. Gladys M. Coghlan, executive director and library director, respectively, of the Historical Society of Delaware to give editorial advice and assistance to pull the manuscript together.

The material resulting from the research required for this book is deposited in the Library at Gunston Hall as the Pamela C. Copeland Mason Family Research File. Part of it consists of correspondence with many members of the Mason family, some of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. All of them have been gracious in replying to my letters and most cooperative in answering my questions. Nevertheless, some members are so deficient in genealogical data that an accurate pedigree of their branch seems impossible. In some instances the repetition of the same name without benefit of dates makes it impossible to be sure of accuracy. I hope that this study will stimulate further research to fill the many omissions of dates and biographical material. Indeed, there must be rich stores about such an interesting family. Given the uncertainty of the times and the lack of roots that have led to a weakening of family ties, the Mason family is fortunate to have the house of their ancestor preserved as a symbol of their fine heritage.

After a hundred years, or after about four generations, curiosity arises as to the place of origin of the immigrant settler. For help on this search, I enlisted the services of Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter Principal, King of Arms, the College of Arms, London, as little was known (except by tradition) of the English background of George Mason I. This now seems proved and documented. Although some descendants may regret that the immigrant was of yeoman stock, this is probably nearer the truth than the tradition that he was a member of Parliament and a courtier of Charles I. George Mason I literally had to hew down trees in the endless wilderness in order to erect a crude dwelling against the elements, plant corn in order to eat, and grow tobacco for support. This, then, was the sort of labor that went into the very first plantation. It required men accustomed to work and fearless women in order to survive. Four generations later George Mason IV was able to enjoy and embellish the cleared lands left him by his forebears. George and his brother, Thomson, also benefited by better educations, as tutors were also looking for opportunities in the new world. Thomson took advantage of the increased trans-Atlantic travel to study in London at the Inns of Court. The political and the legal mind appear in every generation; but although there are Masons who have been eminent in medicine, education, the ministry, and the military, apparently only one became a notable merchant. In the present generation one of the leading hotel corporations of the world is operated by a descendant of Thomas, youngest son of George Mason IV.

Mr. Lucius Randolph Mason, who until his recent retirement had a distinguished legal career, is descended from George Mason’s son Thomson Mason. Through his generosity the Board of Regents in 1954 was able to purchase the portrait of Ann (Mason) Selden, the sister of George and Thomson Mason. Since that time Mr. Mason has continued to take a personal interest in Gunston Hall and in the reassembling of the eighteenth-century Mason-Mercer Library, which is being collected by the First Regent of the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, Mrs. Frederick Frelinghuysen.

The Reverend Melvin Lee Steadman, Jr., has been of the greatest help in genealogical matters. He is a descendant of Thomson Mason of Raspberry Plain and, in my opinion, knows more about the Mason family as a whole than any other member. He has contributed family papers and a portrait of George Thomson Mason to the Board of Regents.

Members of the Mason family in and about Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., have lent precious family heirlooms for special exhibitions and given of their time and talents to aid in some of the special events at Gunston Hall to honor George Mason IV. I should like to express my appreciative thanks to the members of the Mason family already mentioned as well as to all the others who are equally deserving of my thanks if space permitted naming them all. I hope that their personal interest will continue, and in order to encourage the Masons to know one another, a file of living members and their addresses is being maintained at Gunston Hall.

I hope that every Mason will be able to find his line of descent from the genealogical tables, which were drawn with meticulous care by John Thayer of Wilmington, Delaware. The tables have been broken down into family branches, which then may be found on the master table in less detail. Any mistakes are my responsibility. All dates and the spelling of names were carefully checked through wills, deeds, tax lists, church records, and Chancery suits, as well as with members of the Mason family. For the spelling of Virginia place names, I have followed, whenever possible, Approved Place Names in Virginia, Mary Topping et al., comps. (Charlottesville, Va., 1971).

I must thank my husband and family for their patience and good humor in letting me live with George Mason IV. Without their understanding this work would never have been accomplished. To Marion Graham Bailey I wish to express my deep appreciation for the hours she spent in typing and retyping and for her forbearance with my frustration when I could not solve a problem. But the thrill of solving a problem and finding a missing link by piecing together clues and bits of seemingly irrelevant information has been a facinating task that was impossible to put aside. I also wish to thank Mr. Richard Stinely, assistant director of the Publications Department, Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., for preparing the map of the region of the upper Potomac as it appeared in George Mason’s time.

I have been given every courtesy and consideration by Mr. John Melville Jennings, director of the Virginia Historical Society; Mr. Howson W. Cole, curator of manuscripts, Virginia Historical Society; Mr. John W. Dudley, assistant state archivist, Virginia State Library; Mrs. Mary K. Meyer, genealogical librarian, Maryland Historical Society; Mrs. Bryce Jacobsen, archivist, Hall of Records, Annapolis, Maryland; Miss Charlotte R. Lutyens, librarian, the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, London; Mr. A. E. J. Hollaender, keeper of manuscripts, Guildhall Library, London; Mr. E. K. Timings, head of Search Department, Public Records Office, London; Mr. Daniel Hay, librarian and curator, Public Library and Museum, White-haven, Cumberland, England; John B. Rigg, curator of manuscripts, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Wilmington, Delaware; Miss Margaret C. Cook, curator of manuscripts, Earl Gregg Swem Library, the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia; and the Reverend Albert N. Jones, Pohick Church, Truro Parish, Lorton, Virginia.

And, finally, I must name three men who gave me valuable critical advice during the past year when I needed it most. They are J. A. Lloyd Hyde, Edward P. Alexander, and Walter Muir Whitehall. Each in his way has been my guide, philosopher and friend.

PAMELA C. COPELAND

Mt. Cuba

Greenville, Delaware

March 18,1975

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CHAPTER ONE

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Colonel George Mason I

4850.png NGLISHMEN BEGAN TO SETTLE on the Virginia shore of the Potomac River about 1648, seeking lands beyond the settled areas of the York and James rivers. These Potomac pioneers transplanted the institutions of rural England to the Virginia borderland and adopted the tobacco economy of their Chesapeake neighbors. Land grants and local offices obtained by these settlers launched many Virginia families into wealth, which they held for generations, as well as into long traditions of public service. The first George Mason was one of these Potomac pioneers. His descendants became one of the great Virginia families whose history is that of the settlement of a region and the building of a nation.

George Mason I was born in 1629 to Thomas and Ann (French) Mason in Pershore, in the rich farming country of the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire, England.¹ The complex web of tradition made subtle distinctions between Pershore and its neighboring hamlets as the traditions and events accumulated over the centuries. Pershore, a market town on the banks of the Avon, was a more important place than its immediate neighbors, and tradesmen and innkeepers were led to settle within its bounds, drawn by the number of people who came there for the market.

English villages in the seventeenth century were composed of a clearly stratified society, each landholder sharing with his neighbors certain rights and obligations inherited with the land itself from a distant past. The lord of the manor, the publican, the craftsman, the miller, the yeoman, and the yeoman farmer were alike absorbed into the life of the community, each taking his appropriate part in the meeting of the parish vestry, which inherited its function from the court baron.² The very stratification of village society led to easy intercourse between classes; everyone knew his place and rank and could converse and mingle with his betters or his inferiors on a stable basis. Moreover, the very nature of village life, isolated as it was from that of other towns and villages, led to an intermingling of high and low on a social as well as a business plane. This isolation resulted in a stable, nonmobile population and led to marriages made within the confines of the village or with neighboring farmers.

The persistence of names is always a striking feature of village society. There are still George Masons in the Vale of Evesham. In an examination of the records of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the village of Pershore, we find Masons and Frenches described as yeomen, farmers, craftsmen, millers, smiths, innkeepers, gentlemen, and esquires. Their exact relation to one another has for the most part been obscured by time, but some names appear in enough legal and church records to enable us to trace their descendants to this day.

Thomas and Ann (French) Mason were married in the Abbey Church of the Holy Cross, Pershore, on 2 February 1624–25. That the ceremony was held there attests to the prominence of the families, as only the more important people kept their holy observances at the abbey rather than at the parish church.³ Seven of their children were baptized in the Abbey Church, one of whom was their third child and eldest son, George Mason I, who was baptized on 10 June 1629. Not much is known of Thomas Mason. He was a yeoman farmer and presumably not of a quarrelsome nature. His name does not appear in any legal cases of the time except one, when he journeyed to Worcester in 1642 to post bond for his friend William Southerne of Walcott, a village near Pershore, to appear at quarter sessions to answer certain charges.⁴ Southerne was appointed by Mason as an executor in the settlement of his estate in his last will, made orally in February 1655, which was admitted to probate in July of that year. The closeness of this branch of the Mason family to the Frenches is attested to by Thomas Mason’s calling on Grace (Baugh) French and Chrisagone (French) Hungerford to be witnesses to his will. In 1657–58 Ann (French) Mason witnessed the will of Grace (Baugh) French.⁵

The French and Baugh families were two of the most important families in the village at this time. Their ownership of lands and houses placed them on the commissions of peace, on the vestry of the parish, and, in the case of George French, Gentleman, at the head of the court baron of the manors of Old and New Pershore. This last position was one that was included in the ancient rights and privileges belonging to the manors of Old and New Pershore, which he had purchased from John Richardson in 1598.⁶ As lord of the manor, he was the most prominent man in Pershore in George Mason’s boyhood. He lived until 1647, a staunch supporter of the old order in church and state. It is indicative of the respect he commanded in the countryside that his children contracted marriages with other notable families in the area even though his wife, Cecily (Grey) French, and their daughter, Chrisagone (French) Hungerford, were named among the Catholic recusants of 1642.⁷ In 1643 George French conveyed the manors of Old and New Pershore to Edward Baugh, whose daughter, Grace, was married to George French’s son, George.⁸ This conveyance was possibly a means of safeguarding the inheritance of George French’s children from confiscation in such troubled times. It is also of record that a French, Gentleman of Pershore was among those who defended the city of Worcester for Charles I in 1646 and marched out with the garrison to surrender to the Parliamentarians.⁹

The kinship of the members of Thomas Mason’s family with the Baughs and Frenches would have made them more than ordinarily aware of the workings of village and county justice as well as decisions concerning parish affairs. Acts of Parliament clearly defined the method by which parish business was to be carried out by the vestry and the justices of the peace. All the freeholders of the parish met once a year at Eastertime to elect the churchwardens. The acts of Parliament of 1598 and 1601 had greatly expanded the churchwardens’ duties.¹⁰ Originally they had served primarily as parochial officers, keeping the church in repair and seeing to the maintenance of all that was needful for divine worship. The new legislation extended their authority to the whole area of public welfare. The churchwardens acted as overseers of the poor, levying and administering the poor rate, with the approval of both the vestry and the justices. They were obliged to submit careful accounts of all their collections and expenditures for the needy and for the upkeep of the church itself. In September the vestry met again to compile a list from which the justices would appoint men as waywardens to maintain the public roads. As the representative inhabitants of the parish, the vestry had the power to administer common property and make bylaws on matters of public concern. It had absolute control over the assessment, levy, and expenditures of the poor rate and the church rate, as well as the election of at least one of the churchwardens. In actual practice the vestry often had a good deal to do with the election of overseers and constables as well as waywardens.¹¹

Local officials, such as constables, fieldmen, chimney searchers, flesh searchers, ale tasters, and bread and butter weighers, were normally chosen by the court baron. At different times in different places the vestry took the place of the manorial court, giving itself a rather wide authority in local affairs. In other parishes there was a tendency for the vestry to shrink from an assembly of all the freeholders into a select vestry or committee of the more substantial inhabitants.¹² The Virginia vestry system developed from the English vestry system and incorporated parts from both of these contemporary trends. It became in practice the preserve of the more substantial inhabitants and extended its concerns into several areas of economic and social life.

The court baron of the manors of Old and New Pershore, over which George French presided, was a penal court and a court of record, not a meeting of villagers to discuss new approaches to social issues. It was a court held principally for the benefit of the lord of the manor and normally met once a year in the Easter season. Every tenant of the manor was expected to attend, and the court levied fines on those who did not. The major business of the court was the recording of land transfers; the judicial proceeding relied on the fact that every man in the village knew the traditional bounds of every man’s fields. The court assessed fees for recording transfers and fines for misdemeanors on the lands of the lord of the manor. It also performed some of the functions of local government in appointing petty officials where this function had not passed to the vestry.¹³

Country gentlemen usually held the office of justice of the peace as a matter of course. These gentlemen justices presided at the sessions of the county court, which met generally every twenty-eight days in any town in the county at the pleasure of the sheriff. The holding of the county court was one of the oldest of his duties. Its jurisdiction extended to personal actions of debt, replevin, detinue, and trespass theoretically amounting to less than forty shillings but by privilege extended to much larger sums. The justices of the peace assembled four times a year for the quarter sessions to deal with such crimes as petty larceny, assaults, forcible entries upon land, sheepstealing, housebreaking, trespass, and the like. They left the more serious offenses to the more experienced judges of the assizes.¹⁴

The sheriff notified the county of the place and date of the next quarter session and notified all justices of the peace, stewards, constables, and bailiffs to be present. The county court of assizes was assembled by proclamation, the sheriff notifying all officials and others with business at the court to appear before the King’s judges at such and such a date. Besides organizing the courts, the sheriff executed their orders, judgments, and sentences. In social distinction the sheriff ranked above the justices of the peace. He was normally the great man of his county and presumably the wealthiest and largest landowner. These property qualifications were necessary because of the heavy expenses incurred upon the assumption of office and in the entertainment of the judges and country gentry at the assizes. The high sheriff headed the hierarchy of county civil officials, just as the lord lieutenant was head of the military organization of the county. Below the high sheriff ranged undersheriffs, bailiffs, bailiffs of the hundreds, high constables of the hundreds, petty constables, and the justices of the peace. Below the lord lieutenant were the deputy lieutenants and the officers of the trained bands.¹⁵

The functions of all these officials were familiar to every English settler on the frontier of the New World. The Englishmen who settled in Virginia in the seventeenth century nurtured the familiar institutions of local government in a new setting. The transplanting of these traditional forms was not the work of a day but a slow process of evolution and the blending of elements more familiar in one part of England with those common in another.

The vestry system had taken firm root in Virginia by 1644, when the Virginia Assembly provided for this legislation, the Virginia vestry developed steadily in the direction of a self-perpetuating select vestry in the exclusive control of the principal inhabitants. Reformers decried this abuse and sought remedial legislation in 1676. Not only was the vestry itself evolving in the middle years of the seventeenth century, but its functions were no more uniform in Virginia than in England. Levying the parish tithe was clearly the inherent right of the vestry. In some places it served a judicial function, in others, the presentment of offenders to the county court belonged to the churchwardens alone. The relationship between the vestry and the wardens was still somewhat hazy. In one area the care of the poor belonged exclusively to the churchwardens; in another, they shared this function with the vestry or the gentlemen justices of the county court. In some places in Virginia the justices appointed the churchwardens, while in others they were chosen by the vestrymen. By the end of the century the vestry and the county court were composed of the same propertied gentlemen, so that this distinction became a purely nominal one, and for all the efforts to reverse the trend, the development into a select vestry was complete.¹⁶

The earliest judicial system in Virginia consisted of the governor and his Council sitting as the General Court of the colony. In 1619 the authorities began to create monthly courts in each precinct to settle petty civil and criminal cases. In its scope, if not in its frequency, the precinct court bore a certain resemblance to the manorial court. It was only in 1634 that Virginia’s first counties began to be governed like the English shires and to have sheriffs with the same powers as in England. Not until 1642 did the governor authorize the monthly meeting of a county court in some convenient location and appoint the first gentlemen justices for each of the new counties. The membership of the county court came, in practice, to be restricted to the principal inhabitants, extensive landowners or an occasional prominent merchant. The governor had the ultimate authority to appoint the justices of the peace for each county. He shared his power in the 1650s with the members of the House of Burgesses. The right of the county bench to nominate its own members with a recommendation to the governor that was tantamount to appointment gave that body a greater measure of autonomy as time passed. Generally speaking, the gentlemen justices took to themselves the rights and privileges of the justices of the peace of their English counties. In this way they gradually built up a squirearchy of their own in Virginia. The close connection between the sheriff and the county court was regularized by an act of 1661 restricting appointment to men already on the county bench. The county lieutenant had long existed under another name as the commander of the county militia with authority to name his subordinate officers.¹⁷ The local institutions of the land watered by the Avon loomed large in the shaping of the local institutions of the Potomac settlements, for a number of George Mason’s friends and neighbors in the Vale of Evesham had already settled in Virginia. Thomas Baugh, one of Ann (French) Mason’s Bredon Hill cousins, went to Virginia in 1629 in the ship Supply, according to the muster of the inhabitants of the College-land in Virginia (Henrico) taken 23 January 1624. Thomas was unmarried on his arrival and credited with a house, a canoe, a gun, and a complete armor.¹⁸

Another family with Bredon Hill connections was that of the Brents. Giles Brent, Esquire, arrived on the Potomac in 1637. His brother, Fulk Brent, Esquire, and their sisters, Mistress Margaret Brent and Mistress Mary Brent, landed in Maryland in November 1638. They were the children of Richard Brent, of a notable and wealthy Catholic family, lord of the manors of Stoke and Admington in Gloucestershire. His lands were located about twelve miles east of Evesham and some twenty miles east of Pershore. Richard Brent had married Elizabeth, daughter of Giles Reed, Lord of Tusburie and Witten. For some unexplained reason, Elizabeth was buried with her parents rather than with her husband. Giles Reed had ordered a great tomb erected in his memory as befitted one of his station in the church at Bredon just south of Pershore. This great canopied monument of 1611 in the thirteenth-century chapel of the church is astonishing for its rich detail. The fine figures of the Lord of Tusburie and Witten and his wife are shown lying with hands at prayer, he in armor, she in elaborate dress, surrounded by their children, including Elizabeth Brent, who are kneeling at each side of their parents.

That the Brent family into which Elizabeth married was highly regarded is shown by the fact that though they were all Catholic recusants, Richard served as high sheriff of Gloucestershire, England, in 1614. Children of this Richard Brent held lands at Defford, Worcestershire, in the parish adjacent to Pershore. One of his sons, George Brent, lived at Defford and married Marianna Peyton, daughter of Sir John Peyton of Doddington; one of their younger sons, Robert, married in 1686 Anne, daughter of Edmund Baugh of Pensham and a niece of Grace (Baugh) French, mentioned earlier. In the year of their marriage he took his bride with him to Stafford County, Virginia, to settle near his Brent kinfolk.¹⁹

Capt. Giles Brent rose to considerable prominence within a short time of his arrival in Maryland. He was swiftly appointed deputy governor, treasurer, and chief justice of the province of Maryland as well as granted large tracts of land in the Chesapeake wilderness. He married the daughter of the emperor of the Piscataway Indians, after she had been converted by Jesuit missionaries and baptized with the name Maria. She was educated as became her new station by her redoubtable sister-in-law Margaret Brent, whom Governor Leonard Calvert considered the most able person to administer his estate. In 1647 Margaret Brent succeeded Calvert as attorney for his brother Cecil, the lord proprietor. Captain Giles Brent, following his marriage, laid claim before the proprietor in his wife’s right to the greater part of Maryland. When Lord Baltimore failed to accept his argument, Brent withdrew across the Potomac to the peninsula in Virginia formed by Aquia and Accokeek runs. Captain Brent lost his Piscataway wife early in their married life, but she had borne him one son, who was also to be known as Capt. Giles Brent. This half-Indian son, born in 1651, the year of Mason’s arrival in Virginia, was to be closely associated with him in later years in the defense of the Potomac borderlands.²⁰

Brent’s choice of the mouth of the Aquia Creek as the site of his new home in Virginia determined the pattern of some of the earliest settlement on the Potomac River. Newcomers like George Mason, who had connections with the Brent family in England, sought land near Giles Brent’s cleared acres and clustered their plantations along that particular stretch of the river. James Clifton, Gentleman, who married Ann Brent of Defford, Worcestershire, came to Virginia in the 1650s to take up land adjoining that of his wife’s uncle. Two of Giles Brent’s nephews later left the same parish and took up lands on the Potomac. Others, who were members of the Peyton family, may well have come to Virginia under Brent’s influence. For instance, in 1654 Valentine Peyton patented a thousand acres on Aquia Creek near Giles Brent’s land. Peyton was a native of London, but his father had come to the city from the same corner of Gloucestershire as the Brents and was of the same family as Giles Brent’s sister-in-law, Marianna (Peyton) Brent.²¹

The final defeat of the Royalists at the second battle of Worcester in 1651 caused many young men to leave England and seek their fortune in other lands. Some went to the continent; others, like George Mason I, came to the Virginia plantations. There is a strong tradition in the Mason family that he was a colonel in the royalist cause at this decisive battle, although his name cannot be found on the military rolls. Usually there is some truth to these traditions, and the fact that he left Pershore in 1651, the year when the policy of confiscating the lands of supporters of the Crown was introduced, lends credence to the fact that it was considered best for him to leave the country. That he was able to take up a certain number of headrights* indicates that he was not without monetary backing.²²

* Headrights were issued in the names of persons of all social classes. The persons named as headrights in a patent did not necessarily arrive in the colony the year the patent was issued. Before a patent was issued the claimant was required to show receipt as proof that passage money was duly paid (Annie L. Jester, comp. and ed., in collaboration with Martha W. Hiden, Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607–1625 [Princeton, N.J., 1965], p. xxiv).

George Mason left his home in Pershore when he was about twenty-two years old and settled on the Potomac River in 1651 or 1652, first appearing as a juryman in Northumberland County in 1652.²³ When he acquired his first land grants in 1656, Mason’s acres were mostly bounded by the unbroken wilds of the main woods, but he was not without neighbors. Earlier pioneers already had cleared lands on the banks of one of the creeks that emptied into the Potomac, but they had only to wander a short distance from their cabins to be lost in a trackless wilderness. However, before this generation passed away, the patches of corn and tobacco at the edge of the forest became broad acres of cultivated land, and the rough shelters at the head of the creek were replaced by more comfortable dwellings. Within approximately twenty years the line of Virginia settlements extended as far as the Great Falls.† As the settlers pushed on, they carried their English heritage of local government and common law with them—petitioning for new counties and new parishes, electing justices, churchwardens, and representatives to the