Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

John and James Murray Mason Papers, Accession 5036, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

This collection was purchased by the Library from Mrs. Laura Lee Dorsey of Charlottesville, Virginia, on May 7, 1955.

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Scope and Content

The Mason papers consist of 26 items, 1798-1847, chiefly correspondence between General John Mason , one time Superintendent of the Indian Department and his son, James Murray Mason (1798-1871), the U.S. Senator and Confederate diplomat, on personal and financial affairs. Six of the letters are from John Mason 's friend, Richard Rush (1780-1859), in London, England , as minister to Great Britain , discussing political affairs in London and the United States , including frequent mention of the American Colonization Society , the African Institution , William Wilberforce , and Sir Charles McCarthy . One letter, dated March 13, 1813, is from Ely Magruder in Barbados, West Indies , to James Madison , answering charges that he acted as a secret agent of the United States government and commenting on wartime conditions there. Another from Senator John Taylor of Caroline , 1803, requests information on a Virginia-Maryland boundary dispute; and three 1847 letters discuss the collection of a debt by John Jordan Crittenden . There is also a facsimile of the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765.