Site of Homestead

Near here stood Homestead, the plantation of James Mason (1744-1784), who served in the Revolutionary War first as a captain in the 15th Virginia Regiment and then as a colonel in the Brunswick County militia. It was also the home of his son Edmunds Mason (1770-1849), member of the Virginia General Assembly and county clerk, and birthplace of his grandchildren John Y. Mason (1799-1859), member of Congress and U.S. attorney general, and Dr. George Mason (1809-1895). About 90 enslaved African Americans labored here in 1860. Before the Civil War, Dr. Mason and his mother-in-law, Mary A. Jones, operated a school at Homestead that had opened at nearby West View about 1840.