Mason, Armistead Thomson

Armistead Thomson Mason (often known as A. T. Mason) was born to Stevens Thomson Mason and Mary Elizabeth Armistead on 4 August 1787 at Armisteads in Louisa County, in central Virginia. Armistead Thomson Mason was the second son and second of six children of the Raspberry Plain Masons. When Stevens died in 1803, his brother John Thomson Mason became the guardian of his estate and his sons, taking on responsibility for the education of Armistead and his brothers. Stevens’s widow, Mary Elizabeth Armistead Mason, became their daughters’ guardian.  

Armistead Thomson Mason graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1807. In 1808, he inherited around one thousand acres of land on the Mason estate in Loudoun County, where he built his home, “Selma,” in 1810. In 1817, Armistead married Charlotte Eliza Taylor. They had one child together, Stevens Thomson Mason, who was born in 1819.  

During the War of 1812, Armistead T. Mason joined the Virginia Volunteers as an officer. He was stationed at Fort Norfolk in southern Virginia at the time of the British invasion in 1813 and rose to the rank of brigadier general. During this period, he rented enslaved people from his mother’s estate to work on his own property.  

Mason entered the United States Senate as a Democratic-Republican in 1816, filling a vacancy caused by the resignation of William B. Giles. Despite being less than thirty years old, the required minimum age for a U.S. senator, Mason served the remaining months of Giles’s term. In 1817, he ran unsuccessfully for Loudoun County’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Disagreements over the bitter election campaign culminated in a duel between Mason and his cousin, John Mason McCarty. Armistead Thomson Mason died on 9 February 1819 at the age of thirty-one as a result of wounds suffered in this duel. He was interred at Raspberry Plain.  

When Armistead Thomson Mason died, his uncle William T.T. Mason became the executor of his estate. Armistead left most of his estate to his wife and to his son, Stevens Thomson Mason. He also left part of his estate to his widowed mother, Mary Elizabeth Mason.  

By Nathan Whitley