Mason—Soldier, Pirate, Highwayman
In the pioneer history of the Ohio and Mississippi valley, Samuel Mason stands as one of the shrewdest and most resourceful of outlaws. The Harpes were more widely known and were more terrible characters; their notoriety was due to their great brutality. Mason robbed along the roads and rivers solely for the purpose of getting money; the Harpes killed men, women, and children simply to gratify a lust for cruelty. The two Harpes were the worst and most abnormal of their kind, while Mason was one of the shrewdest and therefore one of the most “successful” of bandits.
These three offer the criminologist a field for study of one of the phases of pioneer life—a life that has long been of interest from a historical standpoint. Samuel Mason will be cited in history and criminology as a striking example of a lawless man receiving his just reward. In the meantime, genealogists will probably continue to exclude this “black sheep” from his family. An attempt was made long ago to tear his “branch” from the family tree so that his name and those of his children would not mar the beauty of a stem honored with the names of famous men and women. It was without doubt the frontier life that Samuel Mason entered, and not the family from which he sprang that made him what he was.
Mason was a most striking and interesting figure. He had excellent birth; he had been a fighting soldier on the western frontier in the American Revolution, acquitting himself with courage. It is not clear how such a man in time of peace developed into a highwayman and after years of outlawry came to such a terrible death. A portion of his history is missing and probably will always remain a mystery, but his criminal exploits will lack the proper contrast unless his origin and his early services as a patriot are presented.
He was born in Virginia about the year 1750. Thirty-five years after his death Draper recorded in one of his note books that “Mason was connected by ties of consanguinity with the distinguished Mason family of Virginia, and grew up bad from his boyhood.” [[12H]] This has been assumed in some quarters to connect him closely with George Mason, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, but there is no proof of it. He was a captain in the American Revolution. Two of his brothers, Thomas and Joseph, were among the useful, honest pioneers in the West. They started with George Rogers Clark on his expedition to Vincennes, but “when Clark reached Louisville he scattered some of his men among the neighboring stations of Beargrass [near Louisville].... Of this party were ... Thomas and Joseph Mason, brothers of Captain Samuel Mason.” [[12C]] Another brother, Isaac Mason, married Catherine Harrison, sister of Benjamin and William Harrison, and as early as 1770 moved from Virginia to Pennsylvania where he became one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Fayette County. [[76]] These three Mason brothers, like Samuel Mason himself, were, each in a different way, products of their environment and their times. Pioneer times, like most other periods, produced a variety of characters and Samuel Mason rapidly developed into a product quite distinct from most men of his day.
It is not often that the lineage of a highwayman can be traced back to a position so honorably distinguished as that of an officer in the American Revolution, yet such was Samuel Mason. After fighting for the freedom of his country he drifted down the Ohio to western Kentucky and the Cave-in-Rock country and there began a wild and free career unrestrained by either human or divine law.
Before taking up Mason’s military history it may be well to recall a few facts pertaining to the American Revolution: The first battle in that war was fought at Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775; the surrender of Cornwallis took place at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 1781. While these and other battles between were being fought in the colonies along the Atlantic coast, the frontiersmen west of the Alleghenies were engaged in the same war with the British and their Indian allies. On June 24, 1778, George Rogers Clark left Louisville with about one hundred and fifty men and floated down the Ohio, passing Cave-in-Rock, and at Fort Massac, near the mouth of the Cumberland, began his march through Illinois; he captured Vincennes August 1 and thus saved the west for the American colonies. Between Vincennes and the Old Settlements lay a vast country held, after many hard fights, by the settlers who occupied it.
It was in this frontier defense of the upper Ohio River region that Samuel Mason took part. A complete history of his career as a Revolutionary soldier cannot, at this late day, be compiled; but, from the few statements regarding him that appear in printed history and from a few old documents still extant, sufficient evidence can be gathered to show that Mason was not only a soldier, but that he took a very active part in the struggle.
When and where he enlisted is not known. He probably did so in Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia). In the List of the Revolutionary Soldiers of Virginia, issued in 1912 by the Virginia State Library, his name appears as a captain of the Ohio County Militia. The earliest record of his military life is one showing that in May, 1777, he pursued some Indians who had robbed and killed a family about fifty miles below Pittsburgh. Mason started from one of the forts above Fort Henry, now Wheeling, West Virginia, and “at the head of ten militia gallantly followed the murderers.” Although he killed only one Indian he frightened and scattered the others so badly that the expedition was regarded a success. “This brave young man,” says the report written a few days later, “will no doubt meet a reward adequate to his merit.” [[131]]
About two months later we find him at Grave Creek Fort, twelve miles below Fort Henry. He started on another Indian pursuit July 15. On the 17th he wrote an account of this chase and forwarded it from Fort Henry to General Edward Hand, whose headquarters were at Pittsburgh. The original letter is in the Draper Collection. More than a dozen documents signed by Mason are preserved in the Draper Collection; all are signed Samuel Mason, except one letter, dated August 12, 1777, which is signed Samuel Meason.[21] The letter of July 17, 1777, like other documents just referred to, shows that Samuel Mason was at least sufficiently familiar with the “three Rs” to attempt to report in his own handwriting some of the operations of the militia under him. In it he describes how a number of men, led first by Lieutenant Samuel Tomlinson and then by himself, had gone in pursuit of Indians and returned after two futile scouting expeditions. The suggestion made in this letter that he and his company be transferred to Fort Henry was carried out. [[12J]]