Richard Mason Hancock

Richard Mason Hancock (November 22, 1832 – June 5, 1899) was a carpenter and shop foreman and civil rights activist in the American Northeast and Chicago. He was one of few African-American iron works shop foremen during his era.

Early life

Richard Mason Hancock was born on November 22, 1832, in New Bern, North Carolina. His parents were free blacks. Mason attended private schools, as public schools were barred to black children. When he was thirteen he was apprenticed as a carpenter under his father, William H. Hancock and under builder Uriah Sandy. As an apprentice and in his early jobs he learned the crafts of pattern-making, carpentry, mathematics, and draughting. He then moved to Lockport, New York, where he worked in ship carpentry, on canal boats. He then took work under Birdsill Holly at Holly Manufacturing Company where he learned pattern-making. Mary died in Lockport on July 9, 1861.

He married Jane Watkins in Chicago on 6 Jun 1867; she died on 20 April 1879.

On 26 April 1881 in Cincinnati, Ohio, he married Gertrude E. Gross (née Taylor), widow of the Rev. Tabbs Gross, an enslaved man who had purchased his freedom then become a lawyer and newspaper publisher. Richard adopted Gertrude's daughter Constance Gross. In June 1900, "Mrs. R. M. Hancock, widow of Richard M. Hancock" is mentioned as the "president of the Workers for the King circle of the King's Daughters, the oldest society among colored people of this order in the world".

Public life Mason's work gave him considerable respect and wealth. He was an active republican and vice-president of the Provident Hospital and Training School for African-Americans in Chicago Mason was a freemason and a member of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church. He is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.