Thomson Francis Mason

Thomson Francis Mason (1785 – 21 December 1838)[1][2] 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.

[5][6][7] On October 24, 1805, Mason entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) as a member of the junior class.

John Potts, secretary of the Potomac Canal Company, had begun construction between 1799 and 1802, but ran into financial problems.

Massachusetts born merchant, freemason and city councillor Jonathan Swift acquired the property, which he called "Belle Aire" and where he lived before his death in August 1824.

[14] 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.

[3][4][6] The Middle Turnpike, now known as the Leesburg Pike (Virginia State Route 7),[15] was completed shortly after his death.

[17] Two decades after Mason's death, his widow unsuccessfully attempted to sell Huntley and its accompanying Hunting Creek farm.

Betsey Mason returned to Colross after the conflict and lived with her daughter Caroline and another woman named T.T.

[18] 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.

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.

The restored main house is open for regular tours on Saturdays, April through October, and hosts special programs and events.