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JAMES GILBERT MASON was born October 31, 1841, in Jonesboro, Tennessee,
the country of the Scotch-Irish folk, son of Archibald G. and Lucinda Ryland Mason.
Mason joined the Presbyterian Church at the early age of fourteen, and then decided to be
a minister of the gospel. He fitted for college at Martin Academy, in Jonesboro, and
entered our Class in Sophomore year. Within a year or thereabouts, the opening of the
Civil War broke Mason's connection with his base of supplies, and he was forced to a hard
struggle for self-support. He taught school in Williamstown and Groton, Massachusetts, and
by various expedients he was able to complete his course with our Class. In college, Mason
was a member of the Equitable (or Delta Upsilon) fraternity, of the 'Logian Literary
Society, he represented this society in one of the Adelphic Union Debates, and of
Mills Society. Immediately after graduation, Mason went to New York City, and engaged
in mission work in connection with the Collegiate Reformed Church. He entered Union
Theological Seminary in the autumn of 1863. In the summer vacation of 1864, he joined
General Sherman's army as an agent of the Sanitary Commission. He was with this army
till the evacuation of Atlanta. Soon after he accompanied General Gillem on a raid into
East Tennessee, and was enabled to visit his home the first time in four years. In the spring
of 1865, Mason became principal of the high school at Warren, Pennsylvania. Soon after
the close of the war, in the summer of 1865, he was suddenly called to his home in East
Tennessee, where he gave a portion of his time to closing up the work of the Sanitary
Commission in his section of the State of Tennessee. In October, he returned to his
theological studies in New York, preaching meanwhile at Wood Haven, Long Island. He
was ordained to the ministry and installed pastor of the church at Wood Haven in October,
1866. A part of this time he preached as the first minister of the Memorial Presbyterian
Church, Brooklyn, New York. In 1867, he returned to his native town in Tennessee, having
accepted a call to the pastorate of his home church. Here he spent five fruitful years, giving
efficient aid in restoring the wastes of the war. Among his good deeds was the raising of
a fund to establish Rogersville Female Seminary, Rogersville, Tennessee.
In March, 1872, Mason married Miss Sue Tyler, of the Virginia Tyler family, and in
September of this year he became pastor of the North Presbyterian Church, Washington,
District of Columbia. In 1875, Mrs. Mason died, and immediately after our classmate
resigned his pastorate and sought change and rest in a trip abroad, extending his travels
through Europe and as far as Palestine and Egypt. For a short time, in 1876, Mason
supplied the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, and shortly after traveled
extensively through the United States. In February, 1877, he accepted a call to the
Presbyterian church in Metuchen, New Jersey, and still remains with this people after a
pastorate of more than twenty-five years. Dr. Mason, for so he is entitled to be addressed,
having received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Maryville College, Tennessee, in
1884, has a strong hold upon his church and the people in Metuchen. This was clearly
evidenced at the twenty-fifth anniversary of his settlement as pastor. He received substantial
tokens of appreciation from his church people, and many kindly words were spoken by the
officers of his own church, the pastors of other Metuchen churches, and prominent citizens.
Among the addresses was one by a fellow alumnus of Williams, Henry M. Alden, Class of
1857, editor-in-chief of Harper's Monthly Magazine. Mr. Alden spoke for Williams College,
and among other things he said: "Your chief interest in Williams College, on this occasion,
is in the fact that it is the Alma Mater of your beloved pastor, endeared to you by his loving,
faithful, and effective work during a quarter of a century. The reports you listen to tonight,
the chronicle of that work in significant facts, are after all its mere body; they are no
adequate disclosure of the soul of it, that unseen spirit which has vitalized it, and which has
been an abiding presence in your lives, comforting and ennobling. The whole community
in which Dr. Mason has lived has felt this beneficent influence, and gratefully joins in doing
him honor. It is well that you cherish him and are thankful."
Dr. Mason has been honored in his ecclesiastical relations, having been five times
elected commissioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. He has
frequently been chosen moderator of his local presbytery, and for a number of years
secretary of the Middlesex County (New Jersey) Bible Society, and is now president of this
society. His influence has been felt throughout his section whenever, in public affairs, moral
interests have been involved. He has written a brief history of Metuchen, published
sermons, and contributed to the newspapers. Mason's place in the Presbyterian Church has
been in the liberal party, advocating creed revision and loyal liberty of thought a
Presbyterian, but also a catholic Christian.
In April, 1881, Mason married Miss Anita G. Hauschild, daughter of Henry B. and
Irene (Nichols) Hauschild. To this marriage two children have been born.
1. Irene, born March 13, 1882. She has just graduated at Wellesley College, and is
a teacher in Perkins Institution for the Blind, in South Boston, Massachusetts.
2. James Gilbert, Jr., born November 21, 1883. He is a member of the Class of
1905, Rutger's College, New Jersey.
In a personal letter to your Historian, our classmate writes as follows of some of his
college experiences: "As I look back over the forty-two years since I first saw '63 at
Williams, I think of the boys who were so kind to the green lad from the mountains of East
Tennessee, and of those teachers Phillips and Lincoln, Tatlock, Hopkins,
Chadbourne, Perry, Bascom and of the people of Williamstown, with grateful emotions. How kind
everybody was to me! Why I went to Williams College has always been a blessed mystery
of Providence! It made my life. I painted Chadbourne's and Perry's houses, for when the
war came my financial supply was stopped; yet I got through. Two of my classmates and I
boarded ourselves one term, at the cost of seventy-five cents per week for each man. I
always suspected these two fellows did that to help me along, though none of us had money
to scatter. Then Professor Phillips introduced and commended me to his classmate, Van
Vechten, in New York, that opened a way. Then came the army experience and the subsequent years. As I look back over all this, I am thankful. I do not know how many
more years we may have before we go to the holy city above, but God grant us good in the
years to come as in the past, and I shall be satisfied.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
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