The Green Bag.
JEREMIAH MASON.
JEREMIAH MASON, the son of a Revolutionary officer of the same name, and a descendant of Major John Mason, the Puritan commander in the Pequot War, was born at Lebanon, Conn., on the 27th of April, 1768. His father was a well-to-do farmer, and young Mason's early life was spent upon the farm. The facilities for education were few in the retired situation in which his father lived, and until after the age of fourteen he attended school but three winters, and then only for three months in each winter. In 1782 he began to prepare for college at a school six miles from his home, under a Mr. Tisdale, a graduate of Harvard College. In less than two years he was fitted for examination, and was admitted to the Freshman class of Yale College in 1784.
While in college, he was in the habit of attending law-trials in New Haven, and from this developed an inclination to study law. This was strongly objected to by his father, who desired that he should teach for a time after his graduation, and then study divinity.
Finding that he could get no encouragement from his father, he determined to obtain a law education by his own exertions. With a view to this he visited Albany, where he saw Hamilton and Burr. Not finding any opening there, he returned to New Haven, and began studying in the office of Mr. Simeon Baldwin, who was afterward a Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. In the autumn of 1789 he went to Vermont, and continued his studies in the office of Stephen Rowe Bradley (afterwards United States Senator) at Westminster. In June, 1791, at a Court of Common Pleas held for the County of Windham, he was admitted to the bar. Preferring the courts and bar of New Hampshire, he decided upon settling in that State, and was admitted to the bar there the same year. He lived in the village of Westmoreland until 1794, when he removed to Walpole.
In 1797 he determined to seek a wider field for the exercise of his profession, and removed to Portsmouth, where he remained for thirty-five years in active practice. Mr. Mason rose rapidly to the first position at the New Hampshire Bar, and before 1813 he had no equal in the State. In 1802 he was appointed Attorney-General of the State. His practice extended into most of the counties in the State, and occasionally into the courts of Massachusetts and Maine.
His antagonists in New Hampshire were certainly a remarkable set of men,—strong, hard-headed, and deeply versed in the common law. Mr. Webster removed from Boscawen to Portsmouth in 1807; and until he removed to Boston in 1816, he and Mr. Mason were constantly pitted against each other. Other distinguished opponents were Jeremiah Smith, Ichabod Bartlett, George Sullivan, and Richard Fletcher.
Long before his removal to Boston, which took place in 1832, Mr. Mason's position as the ablest lawyer in New England was fully recognized. With his great reputation he commanded in Massachusetts all the professional business he desired. He continued in the active practice of the law until about his seventieth year, and after his retirement
