Mason
...he has done for America. He served as a framer of the Declaration of Rights of Virginia, a participant of the Virginia Constitution and a participant of the Federal Convention that produced the Constitution of the United States. He was not simply among the circle of the political elite, but was highly respected by them. Jefferson once regarded Mason as one of Virginia’s “really great men, and of the first order of greatness.” However, George Mason became a victim of many illnesses—gout and erysipelas. Coupled with his seniority, at the age of sixty-two, at the Philadelphia Convention, these set George Mason back from an acclaimed political career. Although his political position and his age were significant factors of his lack of historical fame deserved, poor health was ultimately to blame.
George Mason IV was born on December 11, 1725, into the life of aristocracy as the son of George Mason III and Ann Thomson. The marriage to Ann Thomson was fortuitous; she was the sole heir of Stevens Thomson, a prominent lawyer. However, Mason III was by no means poor; his father, George Mason II, owned more than 8,000 acres of land and two dozen slaves. In March 1735, Mason IV’s father died in a boating accident and under the law of primogeniture, he was to inherit all of the family landholdings.
On his twenty-first birthday in 1746, Mason IV returned to his birthplace, Dogue’s Neck, to start his own life. In 1750, Mason began a family of his own with sixteen-year-old Ann Eilbeck. Ann and George had their first child, George Mason V, in April 1753 and nine of their children would live to adulthood. The family’s growth pressured Mason to commence the building of Gunston Hall.
Gunston Hall would be the foundation for Mason IV’s economic career, political and family foundation. Gunston was a plantation consisting of ninety slaves. The plantation consisted...
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