Huntley: A Mason Family Country House. Tony P. Wrenn

Mason. And among the Washington papers preserved in the Lewis and Washington families, and recently sold to autograph collectors, are three letters of George Mason, on the subject of the bounds between the Washington and Mason plantations, one written in 1768, the others in 1769. Washington adds a memorandum to the former, saying that "the lines to which this letter has reference were settled by and between Colonel Mason and myself the 19th of April, 1769, as will appear ... by a survey thereof made on that day in his presence, and with his approbation." "Huntley" owned by Judge Thomson F. Mason of "Colross," son of Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall," passed out of the family some years ago ...

Another mention is in Edith Moore Sprouse's Potomac Sampler, published in 1961.[2] She identifies Huntley as "a part of the estate of George Mason of Gunston Hall ... on a tract of land which bordered Washington's on the north and stretched from the Potomac to Kings Highway."

      The following study of the Huntley complex combines the work of architects, architectural historians and historians in reading and interpreting the structures. At some future date, efforts of archaeologists will probably be rewarded with further information about the complex at various stages of development.

      Introduction Notes

[1] Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1892), p. 472

[2] Edith Moore Sprouse, Potomac Sampler (Alexandria: privately printed, 1961).

CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      THE MASON FAMILY

The first George Mason came to Virginia during the middle of the seventeenth century.[3] Two other Georges followed before 1725, when the fourth George Mason, "The Pen of the Revolution," was born. Movement of the Mason family had been gradually northward, from Norfolk, then to Stafford and Prince William Counties in Virginia, across the Potomac River to Charles County, Maryland, and then back to Fairfax County in Virginia where, in 1758, George Mason IV built Gunston Hall.

The builder of Gunston Hall was later the author of the Fairfax Resolves, of the first Constitution of Virginia and of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. His Declaration of Rights, which was adopted by the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg on June 12, 1776, was the major source for the Federal Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791. Though a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mason refused to sign the Constitution because it did not provide for the abolition of slavery, nor did it, in his views, sufficiently safeguard the rights of the individual.[4]

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other early American leaders were friends of George Mason and Mason's family surely met many of them at Gunston Hall. Jefferson, who called George Mason "the wisest man of his generation," was his last recorded visitor at Gunston Hall, on September 30, 1792.[5] On October 7, one week later, Mason died.

      Nine of his children married. On December 17, 1788, George wrote to his son John that "Your brother Thomson and his family have just moved from Gunston to his own seat at Hollin Hall."

      A tutor of General Thomson Mason's family, Elijah Fletcher, wrote in a letter from Alexandria, August 4, 1810:

[General Mason is] ... a man of note and respectability, his family very agreeable, social, affable and easy. I use as much freedom in the family as I did at my fathers house. I doubt not of their kindness to me in health or sickness. My employment is respectable and I consider my standing upon a par and equality with most of the people. Our living is rich and what in Vermont would be called extravagant. The family rise very late in the morning and consequently do not have breakfast till eight or nine. Our dinner at three and tea at eight in the evening.[6]

      General Thomson Mason served as an officer of militia in the American Revolution, held numerous state and local offices and was active in organizing banks and transportation companies before his death in 1820.

      It was his son, Thomson Francis Mason, born in 1785 at Gunston Hall, who built "Huntley."

      Thomson Francis Mason

Thomson Francis Mason was heir to a family tradition of important friendships, public service and good taste, and he carried on this tradition. Educated at Princeton, Class of 1807,[7] he chose to return to the Fairfax County area to practice law and enter public service.

      His life story is difficult to trace. No biography exists, nor is he mentioned in most works concerning Alexandria, even though he later attained significant recognition there.

      On November 24, 1817, the Alexandria Gazette announced the marriage, on Wednesday evening, November 19th of:

      Thomson F. Mason, Esq., of this place, to Miss Elizabeth C. Price of Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia....

      The young Mrs. Mason was familiarly known as Eliza Clapham Price, not as Elizabeth C., but Thomson F. called her Betsey.

      The use of the phrase "of this place" is of interest here, and open to several interpretations. It could mean that he was living in Alexandria at the time or only that he had an office there. He could have been living in Alexandria and building a home in Fairfax County at the same time.

      Mason was probably already a practicing lawyer at the time of his marriage and was by 1824 a man of consequence in Alexandria.

The fight to get out of the District began in 1824, while it was not settled by Congress until 1846. The citizens of Alexandria, becoming tired of being in the District of Columbia, made an attempt to have Alexandria receded to Virginia. A meeting was held March 9, 1824, for the purpose of preparing a memorial to Congress on the subject. S. Thompson Mason was Chairman of the meeting....[8]

The memorial sent to Congress was couched in legal enough terms to have been drafted by Mason, who later became a judge. His political activities gave him enough local standing to insure his election as Mayor of Alexandria in 1827 and again in 1836.[9]

      A glimpse of Mason as a family man can be seen in a reply to a letter from his wife in which she complained of an exchange of words with Huntley's overseer (in 1828), Slighter Smith. Mason, who must have been in court at Leesburg, wrote:

      I have been indeed a little surprised at hearing the conduct of Mr. Smith. Altho' I knew about the general unkind and bad temper which he possessed, I had no idea that he would have ventured to exhibit it in your presence—or have him guilty of the insolence of threatening violence in your presence and to one under your protection.... I still cannot believe that he would seriously attempt it....

      In that same letter Mason noted:

      ... the great pleasure and pride I have ever felt in seeing you placed above the flame, and having you so looked up to by others.[10]

      As a good plantation manager, he also included a note to Smith informing him of his surprise and displeasure at the outbreak and suggesting:

      I feel it is proper to inform you that I shall feel it my duty to inquire strictly into this subject—And with regard to the threatened violence I beg leave ... to put you on your guard