Thomas Mason (May 1, 1753 – September 18, 1800) was an American businessman, planter and politician. As a son of George Mason, a Founding Father of the United States, Mason was a scion of the prominent Mason political family.
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Early life and education
Mason was born at Gunston Hall in Fairfax County, Virginia on May 1, 1753. He was the youngest child and son of George Mason IV and his first wife Ann Eilbeck, who would die three years later, of complications giving birth to Mason's youngest sister. In 1775, his maternal grandmother Sarah Eilbeck died, and according to the terms of her will, young Thomas became the master of an enslaved boy of about his age, James, son of Moll (27 slaves were willed to the 7 Mason children). While a Thomas Mason represented Norfolk County in the House of Burgesses in 1696, these Masons were descended from the emigrant George Mason who represented Stafford County in that session.
Thomas Mason received a private education suitable to his class. His eldest sister, Nancy assumed her mother's position as mistress of the house until their widowed father remarried seven years later, to the spinster Sarah Brent, who was familiar with running large estates from her duties in caring for her father, an ally of the Mason family. The elder Mason preferred Scottish tutors for his sons, and David Constable, a graduate of the College of Aberdeen, arrived at Gunston Hall in 1774 and (despite refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance to Virginia) remained until 1781, when he left for property owned by his family on St. Christopher Island in the British West Indies. After his departure, the elder Mason sent Thomas and his slightly elder brother John to a school established by the Reverend Buchanan in Stafford County (near his Aquia Church parish). In 1788, although John Mason was sent to study in Maryland, Thomas and his step cousin George Graham were sent to the newly established Fredericksburg Academy in Fredericksburg, Virginia, one of the trustees of which was his cousin James Mercer. After completing his formal education at Fredericksburg Academy, Mason trained to be a merchant under an apprenticeship with William Hodgson in Alexandria, much as his slightly older brother John Mason had with Alexandria merchant John Hartshorne (although the other elder brothers received no such apprenticeship).