The political dispute between Mason and McCarthy, mirrored in the pages of The Genius of Liberty, was fated to resolve itself into a tragedy that shook county and Commonwealth to their roots and caused no small sensation throughout the youthful Republic. General Armistead Thomson Mason of Selma,[142] a grandson of Thomson Mason, was a graduate of William and Mary College, a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Senator of the United States from Virginia as well as the leader of the Democratic party in Loudoun. Opposed to him as a Federalist was his cousin, Colonel John Mason McCarty, a grandson of George Mason of Gunston Hall, a descendant of old Daniel McCarthy of Westmoreland[143] and who then occupied Raspberry Plain. For a long time there had been political rivalry and bickering between the two men and when Mason introduced a bill in the Senate to permit Loudoun Quakers, when drafted for military services in war-time, to furnish substitutes by the payment of $500 apiece, McCarthy seized upon its political possibilities and promptly accused him of cowardice. The issue flared in the political campaign then on and, to add to the fire, Mason challenged McCarty's vote at the polls. Some accounts say that this so incensed McCarthy, described as being generally a good-natured individual with a strong sense of humour but also with a temper that upon occasion would break out beyond bounds, that he thereupon, at the polling place, defied Mason to personal combat, in his anger naming the weapons, contrary to a universally recognized rule of the code. Mason decided to ignore the matter, McCarthy taunted him in the public prints and although Mason's side had been defeated at the election, the affair gradually might have blown over and been forgotten had not Mason, returning from a journey to Richmond, by evil chance found himself a fellow stagecoach passenger with his old friend and superior officer, General Andrew Jackson. The matter of the quarrel with McCarthy, in due course, came up for discussion and Jackson, ever a fire-eater himself, is said to have told Mason with some brusqueness that he should not let the matter drop. On his return, therefore, Mason sent his cousin a letter in which he said he has resigned his commission for the sole purpose of fighting McCarthy and "I am now free to accept or send a challenge or to fight a duel. The public mind has become tranquil, and all suspicion of the further prosecution of our quarrel having subsided, we can now terminate it without being arrested by the civil authority and without exciting alarm among our friends." He informed his opponent that he had arranged his family affairs and was "extreemly anxious to terminate once and forever this quarrel." How recklessly eager was his wish was shewn by his instructions to his seconds to agree to any terms at any distance—to pistols, muskets or rifles "to three feet—his pretended favourite distance, or to three inches, should his impetuous courage prefer it."
McCarthy, in the meanwhile, had cooled down and was inclined to turn aside this new challenge in a humorous vein. He suggested to Mason's seconds that the antagonists jump from the dome of the capitol; but the matter had gone too far for joking and he was told his suggestion did not comply with the code. Again and yet again he offered similar absurd solutions and being rebuffed and in an effort to frighten Mason, suggested shotguns loaded with buckshot at ten paces, suicidal terms which were modified by the seconds to charging the weapons with a single ball and the distance to twelve feet.
After the fatal outcome of the Hamilton-Burr duel in 1804, a wave of hostility to the whole institution of duelling had swept the country. In January, 1810, Virginia had passed an act making the death of a duellist within three months of the encounter, murder, and providing that the survivor should be hung. Moreover, it was provided that the mere act of sending or accepting a challenge should make the offender incapable of holding public office. Therefore it was expedient that the meeting should not be held in Virginia and a field, along the side of which ran a little brook, near Bladensburg in Maryland, was selected for the affair. Principals, seconds and referee arrived at a nearby inn on the night of the 5th February, 1819, and at 8:00 o'clock the next morning, in the bitter cold and snow, the cousins confronted each other on the field, standing so close to one another that their "barrels almost touched." As the signal was given both fired and then fell to the ground—Mason dying and McCarthy dangerously wounded. Mason's body was brought back to Leesburg where it rested for a while in the old stone house on Loudoun Street now owned by Mr. T. M. Fendall, before burial in the St. James graveyard in Church Street with religious and Masonic rites. There the grave is still to be seen. It is said that Mrs. Mason locked the main entrance of Selma after the funeral and that no one again used it until her only son came of age—a son destined to meet his death, many years later, as an American officer, in the battle of Cerro Gordo in our war with Mexico. Tradition has it that ever after the duel, McCarthy was a morose and haunted man. A gruesome detail is added that long after his death his marble gravestone was removed to the Purcell drug store in Leesburg and there used for many years as a slab on which prescriptions were compounded.
From such a sombre picture we may turn with relief to the spectacle of Loudoun in gala attire indulging in the greatest and gayest county-wide celebration her history affords.
Of all those who, from abroad, came to help the American Colonies in their revolt, none so wholly captured the affections of her people as the French Marquis de Lafayette and as the years after the war passed by, that affection remained steadfast. In January, 1824, the American Congress entertained the happy idea of authorizing the President to officially invite the old general again to visit our shores, this time as the guest of the whole nation. Lafayette sailed from France on an American war ship in July, 1824, arriving in New York on the 14th August. Then began the national welcome which, continuing for over a year, stands by itself in our history.
In August, 1825, Lafayette, being in Washington, informed his hosts that he wished, once again, to see his old friend James Monroe, then living in retirement on his estate, Oak Hill. Arrangements were made accordingly and on the 6th August the Marquis, accompanied by President John Quincy Adams, left Washington in the latter's carriage for the long drive to Oak Hill. On their arrival they were greeted by Monroe and a number of his friends who had gathered to pay honour to the nation's guest. For three days Lafayette tarried at Oak Hill, walking over the farm with his host and reminiscing over the heroic days of nearly fifty years before. Leesburg, determining to show its love and respect for the general, sent a delegation to invite him to a celebration in his honour in that town, to which Lafayette readily assented. On the morning of the 9th August, 1825, "Mr. Ball a member of the Committee of arrangements and Mr. Henderson of the Town Council"[144] went to Oak Hill to escort their guest to Leesburg. With them were two troops of cavalry commanded by Captains Chichester and Bradfield. General Lafayette, President Adams, former President Monroe and Mr. Henderson took their seats in the carriage drawn by splendid bay horses which had been provided for the occasion and the procession set out for the county seat. As it neared the town, salvos of artillery greeted it and the roads and town itself were so lined and filled with people that it was estimated that at least 10,000 (almost half of the county's population) were present. And now, to quote the historian of the occasion:
"The guest of the nation, with his honoured friends, alighted in the field of William M. McCarty, where in the shade of an oak, he was introduced to Cuthbert Powell, Esq., chairman of the committee of arrangements; who welcomed him in terms of respect and affection apt to the occasion, and in a manner at once feeling and grateful; to which General LaFayette replied, with the felicity which seems never to forsake him. He was then introduced to the committee of arrangements and to General Rust, the marshall of the day, and his aids. The General then received the military, assembled to honour him, consisting of the volunteer troops of cavalry, commanded by Captains Chichester and Bradfield; the two rifle companies, commanded by Captains Henry and Humphries; and the companies of light infantry, commanded by Captains Moore and Cockerill, who, by their equipments and discipline did credit to themselves and the county."[145]
After being introduced to a few surviving soldiers of the Revolution, the distinguished party was driven to Colonel Osburn's Hotel (the present home of Mr. T. M. Fendall on Loudoun Street) the street in front of which was filled with a great crowd of orderly and well-behaved citizens. Here Lafayette was received by the Mayor of Leesburg, Dr. John H. McCabe and the common council. The mayor made an address of welcome and again Lafayette spoke in reply.
After a few minutes for rest and refreshment in the hotel, the carriages were resumed and
"the procession moved through Loudoun, Market, Back, Cornwall and King Street. Between the gate of the Court house square and the portico of the court-house an avenue had formed, by a line on the right, of the young ladies of the Leesburg Female Academy under the care of Miss Helen McCormick and Mrs. Lawrence ... dressed in white, with blue sashes, and their heads were tastefully adorned with evergreens. They held sprigs of laurel in their hands, which they strewed in the way as the General passed them."