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Mason Family Cemetery at Gunston Hall

GPS Coordinates: 38.6625071, -77.1612146
Closest Address: 10707 Gunston Road, Lorton, VA 22079

Mason Family Cemetery at Gunston Hall

Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

MASON FAMILY CEMETERY at GUNSTON HALL
On the grounds of Gunston Hall Plantation which stands on the east side of the Mason Neck peninsula
Mason Neck, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

The Mason Family Cemetery is on the grounds of Gunston Hall Plantation which stands on the east side of the Mason Neck peninsula. Gunston Hall is off Gunston Road 3.8 miles southwest of the intersection of Gunston with Richmond Highway (Route 1). The mansion may be reached from Gunston Road at the point where the road changes from Route 242 to Route 600. The plantation, which is open to the public, is owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and administered by a Board of Regents appointed from the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America.

Gunston Hall was the home of George Mason IV who was the author of the Fairfax Resolves, the first Constitution of Virginia, and the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, developed in 1776, became the basis for the national Bill of Rights, consisting of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

The history of the Mason family involves an astonishing number of men named George. George Mason II (also known as George Mason the Cavalier) was the first of the Mason family to settle on the peninsula to the south of Pohick Church, according to Chester A. Liddle, Jr. in Families of Pohick Church. The peninsula which is bordered by Pohick Creek to the northeast, the Potomac River to the south, and Occoquan Bay to the west, would eventually become known as Mason Neck.

George Mason II (1660-1716) built his home along Pohick Creek, just north of the present-day site of Gunston Hall, according to Liddle. He called his plantation “Newtown” (q.v.). Eventually, according to Richard J. Muzzrole in Archaeological Investigations of Newtown Plantation House, George Mason II relocated to the west side of the peninsula along Occoquan Bay to a home called “Dogues Island,” where he is buried.

Liddle reports that George Mason III (1690-1735; also known as George Mason the Colonel) lived on Mason Neck before moving to Charles County, Maryland about 1730. He leased Newtown to his brother-in-law Jeremiah Bronaugh in 1731.

George Mason IV of Gunston Hall was born on Mason Neck in 1725. He built his first house on Mason Neck between 1746 and 1752, Liddle says, and began the work on Gunston Hall about 1755, according to a 1969 Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory of Gunston Hall. Gunston Hall stands near Newtown, overlooking the bay now called Gunston Cove.

Liddle lists George Mason IV’s many contributions to his country and community: vestryman, Truro Parish, 1749-1785; court justice; burgess; trustee for the town of Dumfries; Colonel, Colonial Militia; member of the Constitutional Convention. He was also the owner of the Colchester Ferry across the Occoquan River, continuing the ferry service his great grandfather George Mason I had begun in 1684, a service the Mason family continued throughout the eighteenth century.

Gunston Hall is a rectangular building, one and one-half stories, constructed of brick. The interior of the house, according to the buildings survey, is “considered one of the most impressive” of the eighteenth century. The carpentry is primarily attributed to William Buckland who came to Virginia from England as an indentured servant, bringing with him the newest ideas in interiors from British architects.

George Mason IV married Ann Eilbeck. According to a family tree published in 1970 by The Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, their children were: George Mason V of Lexington (1753-1796), married Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe; Ann Eilbeck Mason (1755-1814), married Rinaldo Johnson; William Mason of Mattawoman (1757-1818), married Ann Stuart; Thomson Mason (1759-1820), married Sarah McCarty Chichester; Sarah Eilbeck Mason (1760-1823), married Daniel McCarty, Jr.; Mary Thomson Mason (1762-1806), married John Travers Cooke; John Mason (1766-1849), married Anna Maria Murray; Elizabeth Mason (born 1768), married William Thornton; Thomas Mason (1770-1806), married Sarah Barnes Hooe, sister of Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe; and twins James Mason and Richard Mason who died in infancy (1772).

Gunston Hall remained in private hands well into the twentieth century. The last private owner was Louis Hertle who purchased the property in 1913, according to “Rite of Passage -- Virginia Style -- Death and Burial in the 18th Century” by Camille Morrone, a paper prepared for Gunston Hall. At that time he found the cemetery “surrounded in part by a wire fence in very poor condition.” Paul Kester who had previously owned Gunston Hall, according to Morrone, collected funds from Mason descendants for work on the cemetery while Hertle was involved in restoring the house. In the early 1920s, Hertle planted an avenue of cedars and laid out a path from the main yard to the cemetery, which today serves as a beautiful approach to this historic site. Hertle erected a low brick wall around the extant gravestones and made necessary repairs to the markers.

The Mason Family Cemetery is beautifully maintained by the staff at Gunston Hall. A few old cedars stand within the brick wall and a huge red oak stands just outside the gate to the cemetery. It is possible that some burials lie outside the wall. The gravestones were read in 1922, 1994 and 1998. Information about the cemetery, burials and family relationships at Gunston Hall are on file in the Virginia Room of the Fairfax City Regional Library or may be obtained from Gunston Hall Plantation, Mason Neck, Virginia 22079; (703) 550-9220.

The plaque on the brick wall reads:

This wall was built in 1922 through
the concern and generosity of
Lillian Seeligson Winterbotham
and other Mason descendants.

Interred here are:
(bronze plaque)

George Mason of Gunston Hall, Patriot 1725-1792
Ann Eilbeck Mason 1735-1773
James and Richard Mason 1772
George Mason V of Lexington 1753-1796
Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe Mason Graham 1768-1814
John Graham 1806-1811
Richard Graham 1814
George Mason VI of Gunston Hall 1786-1834
Elizabeth Thomson Mason Mason 1789-1821
Eleanor Ann Clifton Patton Mason 1807-1867
John McCarty Mason 1817-1837
George Mason Ellzey 1837-1838
Richard Barnes Patton Mason 1824-1847
William Stuart Mason 1795-1857
George Mason of Hollin Hall 1797-1870
and others in unmarked graves
(also SAR marker on wall next to plaque)


The gravestones in the cemetery are inscribed as follows:

George Mason
departed this Life on the 7th day of October 1792
in the 67th year of his Age
Principal Author of the First Constitution of Virginia
and of the Virginia Declaration of Rights
- Basis of the Federal Bill of Rights -
(marble vault)

Ann Mason daughter of William Eilbeck
of Charles County, Maryland, Merchant,
Departed this life on the 9th day of March 1773
in the 39th year of her age after a long and
painful illness which she bore with uncommon
fortitude and resignation.
“Once she was all that cheers and sweetens life,
the tender mother, daughter, friend and wife,
once she was all that makes mankind adore,
now view this marble and be vain no more.”
(marble vault with bronze plaque)
George Mason
of
Lexington departed
this Life on the 5th day of
December 1796 in the 44th
year of his Age.

In Memory of
Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Graham
of Lexington
who departed this life
on the 28th day of May
1814
Aged 46 Years.
(gravestone)

Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes
Eldest child of Gerard and Sarah Hooe,
of Barnesfield, on the Potomac, in King George County -
widow of George Mason of Lexington
by whom she had three sons and three daughters -
wife of George Graham of Prince William County,
by whom she had four children,
of whom the eldest, John, who died July 24, 1811,
in the 6th year of his age,
and Richard the third, an infant, lie beside her -
she died May 28, 1814, aged 46 years.
And this slab is, in the year 1878, placed in
affectionate commemoration of her by her
now only surviving children,
George Mason Graham of Louisiana, and
Mary Ann, known as Sister Mary Bernard, of the
Convent of the Visitation, in Georgetown, D.C.
Their father is buried in the Congressional cemetery
at Washington, where from 1815 he filled many public offices
of honor and responsibility, among them that of
Acting Secretary at war for more than two years
at the close of Mr. Madison’s and commencement
of Col. Monroe’s Administrations
until his death in August 1830 at which
time he was Commissioner of the General Land office
to which he had been appointed
by President Monroe in 1823.
(marble slab)


Footstone: J. G.

In Memory of
William Mason
died
March 1856.[1]

In Memory of
George Mason
Born Nov. 11, 1797
Died March 25, 1870.[2]

Eleanor Ann Clifton
Eldest child of Robert Patton of Spring Bank
in Fairfax County, Merchant of Alexandria,
and Ann Reeder, his wife,
and widow of George Mason, the 2nd of Gunston Hall,[3]
eldest son of George Mason of Lexington,
who was eldest son of George Mason, the 1st of Gunston Hall,
and E. M. A. B. Hooe, his wife.
This slab is placed over her grave, gratefully
and lovingly to commemorate the virtues and piety,
the many excellences and the mild dignity
constituting the lovely character of a high-toned
Virginia woman and humble christian by her
friend and relative, George Mason Graham.
born at Lexington, of Louisiana, to the care
and rearing of whose motherless children
she devoted the last twelve years of her life,
born January 2, 1807,
she died July 10, 1867, in Alexandria,
where died also in May 1847,
her only child, Richard Patton, a Midshipman U.S.N.,
alongside of whom she is buried in the same row
with her husband and his son, John MacCarty,
a Passed Midshipman U.S.N.
who was drowned in Pohick Bay in an
effort to save the life of a younger relative.
(marble slab)


No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books

[1] According to information from the Gunston Hall Library, the death date on the gravestone is in error. William Stuart Mason, eldest son of William Mason of Mattawoman, lived from 1795 to 1857.
[2] George Mason of Hollin Hall, second son of William Mason of Mattawoman.
[3] George Mason VI, eldest son of George Mason V of Lexington and Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe.

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Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

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