Armistead Thomson Mason

Armistead Thomson Mason (August 4, 1787 – February 6, 1819), the son of Stevens Thomson Mason, was a U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1816 to 1817. He was born at the 'Armisteads,' in Louisa County, Virginia, graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1807 and engaged in agricultural pursuits until he became colonel of Virginia Volunteers in the War of 1812 and subsequently brigadier general of Virginia Militia.

He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William Branch Giles, serving from January 3, 1816, to March 3, 1817. He then moved to Loudoun County, Virginia where he was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Fifteenth Congress (1816). It was a bitter campaign that gave rise to several duels: Mason himself was later killed in a duel with his brother-in-law, John Mason McCarty, at Bladensburg Duelling Field, Maryland, as a result of this campaign. He is buried in the churchyard of the Episcopal Church at Leesburg, Virginia.

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