John Mason (c.1600-1672)

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John Mason (c. 1600–1672) was born in England where he became an army officer. He migrated to New England in 1630. Within five years he had joined those moving west from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the nascent settlements along the Connecticut River that would become the Connecticut Colony. Tensions there rose between the settlers and the dominant tribe in the area, the Pequots, ultimately leading to bloodshed. After some English settlers were found dead, the Connecticut Colony appointed Mason to lead an expedition against the Pequot stronghold in Mystic, Connecticut. The result is known as the Mystic Massacre, and it was the major engagement of the Pequot War, which virtually destroyed the Pequot tribe.

After the war, Mason became Deputy Governor of Connecticut. He and a number of others were instrumental in the founding of Norwich, Connecticut, where he died in 1672.

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[edit] Further reading

Mason, John. A Brief History of the Pequot War (1736) (reprinted by J. Sabin & sons, 1869)
Mason, L. B. The life and times of Major John Mason of Connecticut, 1600-1672 (Putnam, 1935).
Cave, Alfred A. The Pequot War (University of Massachusetts Press, 1996)
Bradstreet, Howard. The Story of the War with the Pequots Re-Told (1933)