Early Life and Revolutionary War Service
Mason was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in what is now Charles Town, West Virginia, where he lived until moving to what is now Ohio County, West Virginia in 1773. During the American Revolution, Samuel Mason was a captain of the Ohio County Militia, Virginia State Forces. According to Ohio County court minutes dated 7 January 1777, Mason was recommended to the governor of Virginia to serve as captain of the militia. On 28 January, he was present and cited as a captain from Ohio county at a "council of war" held Catfish Camp. Catfish Camp was located at or near present Washington, Pennsylvania. On 8 June 1777, Mason wrote a letter from Fort Henry, now Wheeling, West Virginia, to brigadier general Edward Hand, at Fort Pitt. The letter was signed Samuel Meason. On 1 September 1777, he was wounded but survived an ambush by Native Americans near Fort Henry. Most of the men in his company perished during the attack. He moved again in 1779, this time to what is now Washington County, Pennsylvania, where he was elected justice of the peace and later selected as associate judge, leaving for Kentucky in 1784. Mason's surname was spelled interchangeably as Meason in many of the early records. This is explained in at least two family histories of the Mason/Meason family. One is Pioneer Period and Pioneer People of Fairfield County, Ohio by C. M. L. Wiseman, dated 1901, and the other, Torrence and Allied Families by Robert M. Torrence, dated 1938.
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