Mason, John

Related Category: U.S. History: Biographies

c.1600–1672, American colonial military commander, b. England. He was an army officer before emigrating (c.1630) to Massachusetts and then (1635) to Windsor, Conn. When the Pequot threatened to wipe out the new colonies on the Connecticut River, he and John Underhill led an expedition (1637) against them with the aid of other Native Americans under Uncas and Miantonomo and virtually destroyed the tribe. After this campaign—generally called the Pequot War—Major Mason was a distinguished political leader in Connecticut until his death.

See his narrative of the Pequot War in A Brief History of the Pequot War (1736, repr. 1971); biography by L. B. Mason (1935).