We next hear of him in western Kentucky. It is likely that one of his purposes in going to that section of the country was to take up the land granted to him for services rendered as a Virginia soldier in the Revolution. When he moved west is not known. Finley says he settled on Red River, south of Russellville, in 1781. His youngest son, as we shall see later, was born in western Kentucky about 1787, showing that the Masons had arrived some time during or before that year. In 1790 a petition was circulated by the settlers in Lincoln County, Kentucky, who were living on the Virginia military grants between Green and Cumberland Rivers, asking the General Assembly of Virginia to establish a county south of Green River. As a result, two years later, all western Kentucky was formed into a new county called Logan. This petition was signed by one hundred and fifteen men, among them Samuel Mason and one named Thomas Mason, who may have been the eldest son of, or one of the brothers of, Captain Samuel Mason. Inasmuch as its signers, as far as is known, were “respectable citizens,” it is likely that Mason was considered such when he signed, either because he tried to be one or because he succeeded in passing as such.
The petition recites: “That your Petitioners find themselves sensibly aggrieved by their distance from Courts of Justice, it being near two hundred miles from this settlement to Lincoln Court House, by which, when business renders our attendance indispensably necessary, we are frequently exposed to much danger in traveling through an uninhabited country, being subject to fines and other inconveniences, when from high waters, enemies near our frontiers, or other causes, it is impossible to attend.” [[106]] Mason possibly did not then dream that in the near future he himself would become one of the worst “enemies near our frontiers” and be regarded as one of the great dangers to which men were exposed “in traveling through an uninhabited country.”
Mason’s domestic life in the wilderness of the lower Ohio evidently was, in the beginning, up to the standard of the average early settler. But in the wild woods, far away from companionship and influence of law-abiding citizens, the best of men were subject to deterioration. Men of education, illiterates, and all other pioneers were alike exposed to this strong influence of frontier life. Many men who, by their inborn nature or by their own choice disregarded law and order, necessarily became, by one route or another, outcasts. Mason fell and fell fast, and became not only an outcast, but a notorious outlaw. The only argument that can be presented in his defense is that he was, to some extent, a peculiar product of his times—only more “highly developed” than contemporaneous outlaws who were products of the same influences and environment. It should be added in justice to Mason that, unlike the Harpes, he was out for booty and that he personally never shed blood unless it became absolutely necessary for his own safety.
To what extent Mason had fallen by 1794 can be gathered from an entry quoted from Benjamin Van Cleve’s diary, made in July of that year on his return to Cincinnati from Fort Massac. Van Cleve, with Major Thomas Doyle and a number of other men, left Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, on March 16, 1794, with ten boats to repair Fort Massac and to supply the place with provisions. They arrived at the fort June 12, and three weeks later some of the men, including Van Cleve, started on their return up the river. On July 8 they landed at Red Banks, now Henderson. Here are the entries taken from The American Pioneer, published in 1843:
“July 8. [1794] Came to Red Banks.
“July 9. The weather unpleasant, and the company of soldiers disagreeable. We [four men] determined to quit the boat and travel the residue of the way by land. Made preparations to set off in the morning. This place is a refuge, not for the oppressed, but for all the horse thieves, rogues, and outlaws that have been able to effect their escape from justice in the neighboring states. Neither law nor gospel has been able to reach here as yet. A commission of the peace had been sent by Kentucky to one Mason; and an effort had been made by the southwest territory (Tennessee) to introduce law as it was unknown as yet to which it belonged; but the inhabitants drove the persons away and insisted on doing without. I inquired how they managed to marry, and was told that the parties agreed to take each other for husband and wife before their friends. I was shown two cabins, with about the width of a street between them, where two men a short time ago had exchanged wives. An infair was given today by Mason to a fellow named Kuykendall who had run away from Carolina on account of crimes, and had run off with Mason’s daughter to Diamond Island station, a few weeks ago. The father had forbid him the house and threatened to take his life, but had become reconciled, and had sent for them to come home. The parents and friends were highly diverted at the recital of the young couple’s ingenuity in the courtship, and laughed heartily when the woman told it. She said she had come down stairs after all the family had retired, having her petticoat around her shoulders, and returned with him through her parents’ room, with the petticoat around both; and in the morning she brought him down in the same manner before daylight. This Kuykendall, I was told, always carried in his waistcoat pockets ‘devil’s claws,’ instruments, or rather weapons, that he could slip his fingers in, and with which he could take off the whole side of a man’s face at one claw. We left them holding their frolic.
“I afterwards heard that Kuykendall was killed by some of the party at the close of the ball.
“July 10. Left Red Banks.”
Ministers and certain others, in pioneer days as at present were licensed to solemnize marriages according to the laws established by the state. But a compliance with the church law was, in the eyes of the Masons, a useless form. They disregarded all laws, as it suited them. In that section of Kentucky the execution of the laws was in the hands of Captain John Dunn, a Revolutionary soldier who was one of the first settlers at Henderson and who, in 1792, was appointed its first constable. Starling in his History of Henderson County, Kentucky, says that Captain Dunn was “the only recognized officer of the law in all this territory” up to September, 1796, when he was authorized to “raise three men to act as patrol at the Red Banks.” This increase in patrol became necessary not only because the number of settlers was gradually growing larger, but also because the wild conduct of such men as Mason made it imperative.
That the presence or absence of the patrol was a matter of equal indifference to the Masons is shown by some notes Draper received from Mrs. William Anthony, daughter of Captain John Dunn. [[12K]] In her letter she writes that Mason and his family were among the original settlers of Henderson County and that with Samuel Mason were “a brother-in-law named Duff, and perhaps a son-in-law.” Whether or not this Duff to whom she so briefly refers was the counterfeiter Duff is not known. She states that about 1795 Samuel Mason requested Captain Dunn to sign “some instruments of writing.” Captain Dunn declined to sign the paper, saying he would have nothing to do with any such “rascal” as he was. This refusal aroused Mason and a few days later he and four of his men “fell upon Captain Dunn in Henderson, drew their concealed weapons and beat him entirely senseless and until they thought he was certainly dead, and then threw his body over a fence close by. But Captain Dunn unexpectedly recovered.” Their hatred of Dunn then grew greater than ever.