John Y. Mason
19thUnited States Minister to France
In office January 22, 1854 – October 3, 1859
President	Franklin Pierce James Buchanan
Preceded by	William Cabell Rives
Succeeded by	Charles J. Faulkner
16th and 18thUnited States Secretary of the Navy
In office September 10, 1846 – March 4, 1849
President	James K. Polk
Preceded by	George Bancroft
Succeeded by	William Ballard Preston
In office March 26, 1844 – March 4, 1845
President	John Tyler
Preceded by	Thomas Walker Gilmer
Succeeded by	George Bancroft
18thUnited States Attorney General
In office March 5, 1845 – October 16, 1846
President	James K. Polk
Preceded by	John Nelson
Succeeded by	Nathan Clifford
Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
In office March 3, 1841 – March 23, 1844
Appointed by	Martin Van Buren
Preceded by	Peter Vivian Daniel
Succeeded by	James Dandridge Halyburton
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromVirginia's2nd district
In office March 4, 1831 – January 11, 1837
Preceded by	James Trezvant
Succeeded by	Francis E. Rives
Member of theVirginia Senate representingSouthampton County
In office 1826–1831
Preceded by	Edmund Ruffin
Member of theVirginia House of Delegates representingSouthampton County
In office 1823–1826 Serving with Henry Briggs, Carr Bowers
Preceded by	John C. Gray
Succeeded by	John Denegre
Member of theVirginia House of Delegates representingGreensville County
In office 1819–1821
Personal details
Born	John Young Mason (1799-04-18)April 18, 1799 Hicksford, Virginia, U.S.
Died	October 3, 1859(1859-10-03) (aged 60) Paris,French Empire
Resting place	Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia
Political party	Democratic
Education	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (AB) Litchfield Law School

John Young Mason (April 18, 1799 – October 3, 1859) was an attorney, planter, judge and politician from Virginia. Mason served in theU.S. House of Representatives after serving in both houses of theVirginia General Assembly, then became theUnited States district judge for theUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (1841-1843), but resigned that position to hold important executive and diplomatic offices in the administrations of Presidents John Tyler, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan before his death in Paris, France shortly before the American Civil War, including as the 16th and 18thUnited States Secretary of the Navy, the 18thAttorney General of the United States andUnited States Minister to France.^[1][2][3]

Mason was born on April 18, 1799, at "Homestead" plantation four miles northwest of Hicksford (nowEmporia), the county seat forGreensville County,Virginia.^[4] His mother was the former Frances Young, whose father was the deputy clerk of Isle of Wight County during the American Revolutionary War (and family members would serve as that county's clerks for 118 years, including successfully burying those important records during Tarleton's raids during the American Revolutionary War). His father, Edmund Mason (d.1849), was the second clerk of Greensville County (1807-1834) as well as represented the county in the Virginia House of Delegates (1802-1805, when John was a boy). His grandfather, Col. James Mason, served as a patriot during the American Revolutionary War but died before this boy's birth. These Southside Masons descended from Francis Mason, an Englishman who migrated to the Virginia colony'sHampton Roads area by the mid-1620s, and another Francis Mason began the family's political prominence by representingSurry County in theHouse of Burgesses in 1691-1692 (before the creation of Greensville and Southampton counties), although another prominent Mason family in Virginia would trace its ancestry toGeorge Mason I who had emigrated to theNorthern Neck of Virginia in the 1650s.^[5][6]

After a private education appropriate to his class, including at a neighborhood private school and possibly some home teaching using the family's library, Mason traveled toChapel Hill, North Carolina, where he befriendedJames K. Polk (who graduated in 1818 and later became U.S. President). Mason received anArtium Baccalaureus degree in 1816 from theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then traveled to Connecticut to study law under the direction of JudgeTapping Reeve at theLitchfield Law School in 1819.^[4][7][8]

Mason was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1819 and began a private legal practice, first in Greensville County (1819 to 1821), then neighboringSouthampton County, Virginia (1821 to 1831).^[4] During part of his terms as legislator representing Southampton County, Mason also served as the local prosecutor (commonwealth's attorney) for Greensville County (from 1827 to 1831).^[4] Mason also had other periods of mostly private practice in the late 1830s and late 1840s, as discussed below.

Shortly after his marriage, described below, Mason's parents gave him a 434 acre plantation in Greensville County, and he and his family would also sometimes live on his father's (and grandfather's) former "Homestead" plantation before Mason sold it back to his parents in 1826.^[9] Mason was also one of the founding trustees of the Union Academy of Sussex in 1835.^[10] This was because his primary residence after 1823 wasFortsville plantation in western Southampton County (on its border with Sussex County), previously operated by his father-in-law Lewis Fort (who died in 1826).^[11][12] Mason continued to operate these plantations using overseers and enslaved labor. In 1831,Nat Turner's Rebellion occurred in his district, but was suppressed. Mason owned 39 male slaves and 48 female slaves in Southampton County in 1840 (among them one woman over 100 years old and another woman and man older than 55), among the 99 people in his household.^[13] A decade later, he owned 84 slaves in Southampton County,^[14] and an additional eleven slaves between ages 13 and 40 in Richmond, some of whom may have been leased to other individuals or corporations.^[15] A year after his death, Mason's estate continued to own 13 enslaved people in Greensville County, the oldest a 40 year old woman, and the youngest two 6 year old boys and a three year old girl.^[16]

One local historian of Southampton County considers this Jacksonian Democrat the most influential politician in that county for more than a decade.^[17] Southampton County voters elected Mason as one of their representatives in theVirginia House of Delegates in 1823 (when bothJohn C. Gray and Francis Williamson died before the session began), and re-elected him twice (so he served alongside first Henry Briggs then Carr Bowers).^[18] Thus, Mason served until 1826, whenEdmund Ruffin resigned hisVirginia Senate seat in order to hold a federal office, and Mason won the election to succeed him in the district consisting of Southampton and Surry Counties, as well as Sussex, Surry, Prince George and Isle of Wight Counties, where he served until succeeded byFrancis E. Rives in late 1831.^[4][19] Voters from a district containing the same counties of his state senate district elected Mason as one of their four representatives at theVirginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-1830, and he served alongsideJames Trezvant, Augustine Claiborne and John Urquart.^[20] That constitution was overwhelmingly adopted by Virginia voters, including 259 of 261 Sussex County voters.^[21] Decades later, he represented a similar district (consisting of Greensville and Southampton counties, as well as Isle of Wight, Nansemond, Sussex and Surry Counties) alongside Robert Ridley, John R. Chambliss and A.S.H. Burgess during theVirginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, as well as served as its President after Ridley nominated him and fellow delegates elected him to that speakership. However, he, Ridley and Chambliss would ultimately vote against that instrument, which adopted universal white male voter suffrage as well as explicitly accepted slaver, but it again was overwhelmingly ratified by Virginia voters as a whole, 75,748 to 11,060.^[22][23][24]

Mason was elected as aJacksonian Democrat fromVirginia's 2nd congressional district to theUnited States House of Representatives of the22nd,23rd and24th United States Congresses and served from March 4, 1831, until resigning on January 11, 1837.^[23] He was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs for the 24th United States Congress.^[23] Following his departure from Congress, Mason resumed his private legal practice in Greensville's county seat, then known as Hicksford (nowEmportia) from 1837 to 1841.^[4]

PresidentMartin Van Buren on February 26, 1841, nominated Mason to a seat on theUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia vacated by JudgePeter Vivian Daniel.^[4] TheUnited States Senate confirmed the appointment on March 2, 1841, and Mason received his commission on March 3, 1841.^[4] On March 23, 1844, Mason having accepted a position as Secretary of the Navy as described below, Mason resigned, thus ending his judicial service.^[4]

PresidentJohn Tyler appointed Mason the 16thUnited States Secretary of the Navy in the Cabinet of PresidentJohn Tyler and served from March 14, 1844, to March 10, 1845, and again as the 18th Secretary in the Cabinet of PresidentJames K. Polk from September 9, 1846, to March 7, 1849.^[23] He was the 18thAttorney General of the United States from March 11, 1845, to September 9, 1846.^[23] He resumed the practice of law inRichmond, Virginia from 1849 to 1854, in addition to his service at the state constitutional convention in 1850.^[4] In 1847, theAmerican Philosophical Society elected Mason as one of their members.^[25]

In 1853 PresidentFranklin Pierce appointed MasonUnited States Minister to France for theUnited States Department of State, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment later that winter. According toJohn S. Wise inThe End of an Era, Mason became associated withNapoleon III.^[26] At a meeting in Ostend, Belgium in 1854, Mason met with Buchanan and Soule, the ambassadors to England and Spain, and drafted theOstend Manifesto which iterated the United States' interest in purchasing Cuba.^[27] Its publication aroused outrage in the northern United States, with critics fearing it the beginning of a Caribbean slave empire.^[28] Nonetheless, PresidentJames Buchanan reappointed Mason, who thus served from January 22, 1854, until his death.^[23]

In 1821 Mason married Mary Ann Fort (d. 1870), the daughter of a prominent land-owner but whose family did not have a tradition of political service as extensive as the southside Masons and Youngs. The newlyweds lived atFortsville, a house her father built in a plantation which straddled three counties. They had twelve children who survived infancy.^[29] Five sons and daughters sons reached adulthood, including Lewis Fort Mason (b. circa 1825), who survived the Civil War and became a schoolteacher in Southampton County.^[30] His sister Elizabeth Harris Mason (1830-1881) married Petersburg lawyer Roscoe Briggs Heath, who served as Assistant Adjutant General and Chief of Staff to C.S.A. GeneralJoseph R. Anderson before resigning for health reasons and dying during the conflict, and her sister married Archer Anderson.^[31] John Young Mason Jr. (1823-1862) also died in Virginia during the conflict and his mother's lifetime. St. George Tucker Mason (1844-1844) enlisted in the12th Virginia Infantry without his mother's permission and later in the13th Virginia Cavalry, and was wounded several times but survived the war, then was pardoned and graduated from theVirginia Military Institute (VMI), but returned to Europe and renounced his U.S. citizenship for that of France and enlisted in theFrench Foreign Legion and served in Algeria before dying of dysentery in what later becameSaigon, Vietnam.^[32][33] Simon Blount Mason (1848-1925) graduated from VMI after the conflict and became a merchant and railroad executive in Hanover County, Virginia.

Mason died on October 3, 1859, inParis in theFrench Empire, survived by his widow and several children.^[4] His remains were conveyed to the United States and interred inHollywood Cemetery in Richmond.^[23] HisFortsville plantation, located nearGrizzard,Sussex County, Virginia was placed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1970.^[34]

USSMason (DD-191) from 1920 to 1940, andUSSMason (DDG-87) from 2003 to present, were named in honor of Secretary of the Navy John Y. Mason, sharing the honor on DDG-87 with another individual of the same last name.^{[citation needed]}

• 1831; Mason was elected with 57.88% of the vote, defeating Independent Richard Eppes.^{[citation needed]}
• 1833; Mason was re-elected unopposed.^{[citation needed]}

• Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850

• Williams, Frances Leigh (1967). "The Heritage and Preparation of a Statesman, John Young Mason, 1799–1859".Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.75 (3):305–330.JSTOR 4247323.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toJohn Y. Mason.

• United States Congress."John Y. Mason (id: M000220)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911)."Mason, John Young" .Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 840.
• John Young Mason at theBiographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of theFederal Judicial Center.

• 1799 births
• 1859 deaths
• 19th-century American planters
• Burials at Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)
• Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
• United States federal judges appointed by Martin Van Buren
• 19th-century American judges
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• Ambassadors of the United States to France
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• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
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• Tyler administration cabinet members
• 19th-century American diplomats
• Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia
• 19th-century United States representatives
• United States federal judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law
• Planters from Virginia

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