orfolk County, (1651,) and was soon
followed by his family. He removed to Acohick Creek, on the Potomac. He
commanded (1676) a volunteer force against the Indians, and in the same
year represented the County of Stafford in the assembly, being a
colleague of the author of "T. M.'s Account of Bacon's Rebellion," who
was probably Thomas Matthews, son of Samuel Matthews, some time Governor
of Virginia. The County of Stafford had been carved out of Westmoreland
in the preceding year, and was so called by Colonel Mason in honor of
his native county of Staffordshire, England. His eldest son, George,
married Mary, daughter of Gerard Fowke, of Gunston Hall, in that English
county. Their eldest son, George Mason, third of the name, also lived in
Acohick, and lies buried there. George Mason, fourth in descent, and
eldest son of George, last named, married a daughter of Stevens Thomson,
of the Middle Temple, attorney-general of Virginia in the reign of Queen
Anne. He resided at Doeg Neck, on the Potomac, then in Stafford, now in
Fairfax, and was[649:A] lieutenant and chief commander of Stafford. He
was drowned by the upsetting of a sail-boat in the Potomac. He left two
sons and a daughter. One of the sons was George, author of the
constitution of Virginia, and the other, Thomson Mason, a member of the
house of burgesses, an eminent lawyer, and true patriot. He was elected
one of the judges of the first general court. He suffered from the gout,
and one of Governor Tazewell's earliest recollections is the having seen
him carried into court when laboring under that disease. His son,
Stevens Thomson Mason, was a member of the Virginia Convention of 1788,
and United States Senator, and his son, Armistead Thomson Mason, was
also a Senator of the United States from Virginia. George Mason, fifth
of the name, was born at Doeg's Neck in 1726; he married Ann Eilbeck, of
Charles County, Maryland, and built a new mansion on the high banks of
the Potomac, and called it Gunston Hall.

George Mason was, in 1776, fifty years of age. His complexion was
swarthy, his face grave, with a radiant dark eye, his raven hair
sprinkled with gray; his aspect rather foreign; nearly six feet in
stature, of a large athletic frame, and active step.[649:B] His presence
was commanding, his bearing lofty. He was fond of hunting and angling.
He was a systematic, wealthy, and prosperous planter; indifferent to the
temptations of political ambition; devoting his leisure