Thomson Francis Mason

Thomson Francis Mason (1785 – 21 December 1838) was an American lawyer, planter and politician who served as the Mayor of Alexandria, D.C. between 1827 and 1830, and as a justice of the peace for many years and briefly in the months before his death as a judge of the Washington, D.C., criminal court. He was the second eldest child and eldest son of General Thomson Mason (1759–1820) and his wife Sarah McCarty Chichester. Mason and his brother Richard Chichester Mason were primarily raised at Hollin Hall, their father's plantation house finished by Christmas 1788.

On October 24, 1805, Mason entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) as a member of the junior class. In the 1820 census (also the year of his father's death), Thomson F. Mason's household included himself and his wife and daughter, a free white woman and a free black man, as well as seven enslaved people, including a boy and three girls younger than 14 years old. The 1830 census, the last of Thomson F. Mason's lifetime, indicates his household included sixteen people: three white males, eight white females and five slaves (only one, a girl, younger than 10).

Huntley and Colross

When this man's grandfather George Mason died on October 7, 1792, Mason's father Thomson inherited a portion of the Gunston Hall estate, on which his father had helped him to build a house. Around 1817, Mason's father Thomson Mason divided the property into two plantations: Mason renamed the property Colross (probably after a Scottish manor) added a brick wall around the property, as well as added rooms and a Greek Revival style portico. He also served as Justice of the Peace in Alexandra three times. Six months before his death in 1838, President Martin Van Buren appointed Mason as the first judge of the newly organized Criminal Court of the District of Columbia. was completed shortly after his death.

Mason's widow Betsey completed Colross and remained active in the community, including as the Vice-Regent for Virginia of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association (which secured a contract to acquire Mount Vernon in 1858). Two decades after Mason's death, his widow unsuccessfully attempted to sell Huntley and its accompanying Hunting Creek farm.

Arthur Pendleton Mason, who married a daughter of Justice John Archibald Campbell and became a Confederate officer during the American Civil War, inherited and lived at Colross. He sold it to the locally prominent Smoot family, which used it as their business office as well as continued to entertain at the house. However, between 1929 and 1932, that large and historic Georgian style house was physically moved brick by brick to Princeton, New Jersey, to permit further commercial development of the 1100 Oronoco Street block which it had occupied. In 1958 the rebuilt structure was sold to the Princeton Day School, which currently uses it as an administrative building. In 2005 the City of Alexandria authorized an archeological survey of the site, which unearthed a cistern and evidence of slave residences, among other structures.

In 1989, the Fairfax County Park Authority acquired Huntley. The restored main house is open for regular tours on Saturdays, April through October, and hosts special programs and events. Renovation of the nearby tenant house was completed in 2017 and it is used as a visitor welcome center for tours and programs.

Ann Graham Florence Mason Rhett (died 1883)

Thomson and Betsey's surviving five daughters and three sons attended various schools in Alexandria, where they learned music, drawing, and French in addition to reading and writing. The couple were friends with members of the Lee family, the Washingtons, the Madisons, and other landed gentry. Thomson and Betsey entertained lavishly at their Colross and Huntley estates.

Thomson Francis Mason was a grandson of George Mason (1725–1792); nephew of George Mason V (1753–1796); grandnephew of Thomson Mason (1733–1785); son of Thomson Mason (1759–1820) and Sarah McCarty Chichester Mason; first cousin once removed of Stevens Thomson Mason (1760–1803) and John Thomson Mason (1765–1824); second cousin of Armistead Thomson Mason (1787–1819), John Thomson Mason (1787–1850), and John Thomson Mason, Jr. (1815–1873); first cousin of George Mason VI (1786–1834), Richard Barnes Mason (1797–1850), and James Murray Mason (1798–1871); second cousin once removed of Stevens Thomson Mason (1811–1843); and first cousin thrice removed of Charles O'Conor Goolrick.