Tenant Farmers at Gunston Hall

Tenant farmers made up a large part of Virginia’s population during George Mason’s lifetime.  Land was very expensive.  While well-to-do families like the Masons owned tens of thousands of acres, most people could not afford any land at all.  Instead, many Virginians leased property from the wealthy.  Since cash was scarce in the colonies, tenant farmers usually paid their rent by giving the landowner a portion of their crop.  

Tenants and landlords signed a contract for how much land was rented and for how long, what the tenant would pay each year for rent, and any additional requirements made by the landowner.  For example, the first European farmer to work on that land had extra responsibilities. The lease typically required the renter to build a house to live in and to construct barns for storing crops and equipment.  These “improvements” were a good deal for the landlord, as they allowed him or her to raise the price of rent for a future tenant.  

For George Mason and other colonial social elite, owning large amounts of land was a sign of power and wealth.  With holdings in several counties in Virginia, Maryland, and even the present-day Midwest, at his death Mason owned approximately 100,000 acres. By leasing portions of these properties, Mason gained a steady income stream and transferred the work and responsibility of cultivating some of his vast tracts of land to tenants.  Rents from these tenants helped keep the Mason family in luxury.

Over the years, Mason likely leased land to dozens of renters.  The names of only a few of these tenants have remained through time.  The few land leases that have survived give us clues about who was renting the land and what their lives were like.  

Thomas Halbert

Thomas Halbert signed a land lease agreement with George Mason in 1752, agreeing to pay 1,050 pounds of “good tobacco” each year in exchange for the use of two hundred acres of land. This rent was approximately equivalent to the labor of one adult person for an entire year.  

The lease makes clear that the Halbert family planned to grow tobacco as a cash crop, since they were to pay their rent with that commodity. In addition, Thomas Halbert agreed to establish an orchard of 1,000 fruit trees.  The apples and peaches produced by these trees were likely useful to Mason for making ciders and brandies.  

The agreement was intended to last for a long time. The lease was binding for not only Thomas Halbert’s life, but for the length of three consecutive lives of himself and his family.  Thus, if Halbert died, his wife Lydia could continue to live on and farm the same plot.  After her death, their eldest son John could also rent with no change to the original contract.  

John Ward

John Ward may have initially come to Virginia in 1727 as a convict, known as a King’s Passenger, to serve his sentence by working as an indentured servant.  If he survived to the end of his punishment, Ward was free to settle and work as he wished.  By 1764 Ward was still struggling, having not yet been able to make enough money to purchase his own land.  He and Geroge Mason signed a lease agreement in 1764 for one hundred acres in Fairfax County.  It featured a common stipulation that if Mason or his children wanted to reclaim the land before the contract’s time was finished, they could do so.  In that case the Masons would have to pay John Ward for any buildings he had constructed, such as houses and barns.  In 1772, Mason gave Ward six months’ notice that he wanted to take back the one hundred acres Ward farmed.  Mason paid Ward £27 and 10 shillings for the cost of the houses and barns which Ward had built.  We do not know why Mason wished to recover the land or what happened next to John Ward.

Researching the names and lives of the tenant farmers who rented from George Mason is an ongoing project.  We look forward  to sharing more information as we better understand the lives and work at Gunston Hall beyond the Mason family.

Indentured Servants at Gunston Hall

When English settlers arrived in the New World, they brought indentured servitude with them.  Under this system, people worked for a set period of time as a payment for something. In Virginia, many indentured servants worked to earn enough money to pay for the cost of their travel from England. Some were children who were “bound” by their parents or the court system.Indentured servants were men and women who willingly signed a contract in which they agreed to work for a certain number of years to compensate for their voyage to America. 

Three different types of indentured servant agreements existed in the 18th century: free-willers, King’s passengers, and redemptioners. George Mason held contracts for all of these kinds of indentured servants over the course of his life. Mason’s records are inconclusive, so it is not known how many he utilized throughout his life.

Free-will indentured servants decided to come to America on their own merit and willingly signed a contract before departing England. King’s passengers, also known as convict servants, were criminals who were sent to America to serve a term of seven or fourteen years, depending on the crime they committed. Finally, redemptioners were passengers who were given two weeks to redeem the price of their voyage once they got to America and if they were unable to make the payment, they were sold to the highest bidder.

There are very few records on the indentured servants who worked and lived at Gunston Hall. The handful that remain give us a look at what type of servitude they were indentured into, the skills they acquired, and their primary responsibilities.

William Buckland

After receiving training as a carpenter and joiner in Oxford, England, William Buckland, at the age of 22, decided to sign an indenture contract with Thomson Mason, who was acting on behalf of his brother George. Buckland’s indenture began in 1755 and lasted for four years. His skills in designing and building fashionable woodwork yielded a sum of £20 sterling (an amount equaling about 3 months wages for a skilled laborer) per year in addition to room and board which included “meat, drink, washing, [and] lodging.” Buckland played a significant role in the creation of Gunston Hall and produced the elaborate interior designs that can still be seen today. Upon completing his indenture, he continued to design and construct houses and public buildings on the Northern Neck of Virginia and in Annapolis, Maryland.

William Bernard Sears

A skilled woodcarver, William Bernand Sears must have fallen on hard times. While living in London, he stole several articles of clothing and pawned them off. Sears was punished with a sentence of serving seven years as a “King’s Passenger,” or convict servant. At the time, only about 50% of Europeans newly arrived in North America lived longer than 6 months. Sears was placed on the colonies-bound ship Tyral in 1752. After beginning work on Gunston Hall in 1754, George Mason seems to have bought Sears’ contract–and thus his labor–from another person in the region. As a master carver, Sears translated William Buckland’s designs into wood. 

After Sears completed his indenture, he continued to work as a master carver. He carved a wooden mantlepiece in the dining room at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, as well as trained Washington’s enslaved carver, Sambo Anderson. He then worked on two churches, including Pohick Church in Lorton, Virginia. Sears’ 1818 obituary stated that he “lived for a considerable time in the family of Col. George Mason of Gunston, who ever spoke of him in terms of highest respect.”

Timothy Hanly

Timothy Hanly was a sawyer, or someone skilled in sawing wood into boards. He came to America as a redemptioner, with two weeks after his arrival in the New World to find money to pay for his trip across the Atlantic. Hanly discovered what most other redemptioners learned: it was almost impossible to earn the money that quickly.  Hanley proved unable to pay his passage fare within the allotted time. George Mason bought his contract, paying the debt in exchange for Hanley’s work for a period of time. The Masons needed Timothy Hanly’s specialized skills in sawing wood, because one of the middle Mason sons, Thomson, was building his home, Hollin Hall. Hanly’s indenture lasted for 18 months.

John Davidson and David Constable

John Davidson from England, signed a contract as a free-will tutor for George Mason in 1770. Very few records of Davidson exist, but we can assume that his indenture term lasted between three to four years because another indentured tutor, David Constable, started his term in 1774.

David Constable, also someone who traveled to the colonies of his own free will, graduated from the College of Aberdeen in Scotland. Soon after, he left the British Isles to move to Virginia and tutor Ann and George Mason’s children.Constable lived and worked at Gunston Hall from 1774 through1781. After he completed his indenture, the young man moved to the Carribean island of Saint Kitts, where he took over his ailing brother’s business. George Mason helped smooth the way for Constable, writing to the Governor of Virginia, Thomas Nelson Jr., asking for a passport for Constable to travel to the West-Indies in 1781.

Thomas Spalding

Thomas Spalding, a free-will brick maker and brick layer, arrived at Gunston Hall in 1774. His contract stated that his indenture would last for four years, during which time, he would also receive a salary of £12 sterling. According to the Fairfax County Court, Spalding was not capable of performing his duties, and the court changed his original contract. The Court ruled that Spalding would have to finish the remainder of his indenture, but he would no longer receive wages.

German Coachman, Name Unknown

When George Mason needed someone to be a coachman, or drive his carriage, he purchased from another plantation owner an indenture contract that still had two years left. We know little about the man who was under contract. We know that he was a German immigrant, but we do not know his name.  When he was not driving the carriage, the man served as a waiter in the mansion. After he fulfilled his contract in 1787, the coachman stayed on at Gunston Hall, working out several yearly contracts. Staying on as a wage worker was a fairly common practice for people whose indenture agreements had run out. The unidentified man received wages of  £15 a year plus clothing. The clothing likely included livery (a uniform). A surviving letter to George Washington tells us that Mason did not think much of the coachman but kept him on because it was difficult to find skilled coachmen. Mason wrote to Washington that the coachman was “exceedingly lazy” and “incorrigibly addicted to liquor.”

People of Gunston Hall

Gunston Hall was a busy, thriving enterprise made possible by the work of hundreds of people who were not part of the Mason family. Some people, such as Thomas Halbert, a tenant farmer, and Mrs. Newman, a governess, had a choice. Others, such as Cato, an enslaved man who probably worked in the fields, and William Bernard Sears, an indentured servant, toiled at Gunston Hall in bondage.

We are still uncovering the details of their lives. Historical documents and archaeological evidence tell us that their experience was far removed from that of the people who lived in the mansion that remains today. From the food they ate to the clothes they wore to the work they did to the buildings they lived in, many residents experienced much more hardship and much less elegance than the Masons did.

Learn more about all of the people who lived in and around the property.

Take a Closer Look at Sarah Brent Mason

By Denise McHugh

Who is Sarah Brent? Much like for George Mason’s first wife Ann, or for Mason’s daughters or daughters-in-law, the information on Sarah is sketchy, gleaned from various public records and through letters and documents almost exclusively of male family members.

It is worthwhile to initiate our search for Sarah Brent in the century earlier than our time period. Giles, Fulke, Margaret, and Mary Brent, offspring of a distinguished and well-to-do Catholic family in Gloucestershire, England, arrive in Maryland in the years 1637 and 1638. Giles and Margaret especially come to prominence in this new place. Giles earns the appointments of deputy governor, treasurer, and chief justice of the province of Maryland. Unmarried Margaret, a major landowner in St. Mary’s County and Kent Island, even serves in the capacity of attorney to Lord Proprietor Cecil. Eventually, however, Giles and Margaret fall into disfavor with the established order. By about 1650, they move to Virginia. Giles selects as the site for his plantation land that is across the Potomac River from southern Maryland, near the mouth of Aquia Creek in Stafford County. Probably within a year, in about 1651, 22-year-old or so George Mason I, a friend and neighbor of the Brent family in England, emigrates across the Atlantic Ocean and gains a patent to land in the same area of the Northern Neck of Virginia.

Giles’ nephew, George, great-great grandfather of our Sarah Brent, settles in this area in 1660, coming straight to Virginia from England. In the ensuing years, as this area of Virginia develops at a rapid clip, the names of Giles Brent and George Mason, and the names of their sons, appear in records as prominent leaders of the community. Even during this early period, there also is a Brent-Mason connection through marriage.

The long-standing relationship between the Brents and Masons probably continues to the time of our George Mason, with George Mason IV likely considering the Brents as old family friends. The Brent-Mason connection comes up in at least one 18th-century record preceding the marriage in 1780. In 1760, George Mason IV sends to George Washington a survey he had conducted of land originally owned by the Brents. Mason’s father had purchased some of this property from the Brents some years ago and now Washington is buying more of it to add to his holdings at Mount Vernon.

In 1760, George Brent is residing at the plantation Woodstock, which is located in the same region as the home of his grandfather in the 1600s. Brent had met and married Catherine Trimmingham in Bermuda in about 1730. Together, George and Catherine Brent have seven children: Sarah, the eldest, who comes to wed George Mason IV; two sons; and four other daughters. Within six years of their marriage, the couple has moved to Virginia (actually moved back, in George’s case).

Sarah Brent comes to take over the management of the household when the mother dies in 1751. The new mistress of Woodstock is between 20 and 22 years old at the time, not much older than Nancy Mason, eldest daughter of George Mason, when she begins to oversee the house and family at her mother’s death in 1773. Although available records are not complete, we can assume that most, if not all, of Sarah’s brothers and sisters are living at home when their mother dies. Robert is about 20 years old; Catherine, about 15, Jane (also called Jean in some records) , about 13; George is about 10; and Elizabeth and Susannah appear to be younger. At least four of these siblings marry in the 1750s.

Sarah Brent heads the Woodstock household for 27 years until her father’s death in 1778. Interestingly, her sister Elizabeth is likely at home as well, since a genealogy shows her dying unmarried in 1783. However, it is Sarah whom her father remembers in a special way in his will, executed the year of his death. George Brent bequeaths Sarah a silver tankard, salver, and two porringers which had belonged to her grandmother as a “lasting monument of the sense I have of her merit and the case she has taken of me.”

Sarah Brent and George Mason wed on April 11, 1780, about two years after her father’s death and several months after George Mason writes to friend James Mercer that as justice of the peace, he had been signing two or three marriage licenses each day and wishes to get one himself. “I find cold Sheets extreamly disagreeable” he comments to Mercer. It is likely that Sarah is a practicing Roman Catholic, like her father and the Brent family. However, Sarah and George are married by Rev. James Scott of the Anglican Church. Like her step-daughter Nancy, Sarah is more mature than most 18th-century women marrying for first time. She is about 50 years old, George is 55, and Nancy, who weds in 1789, is thirty-four.

In a move that was not typical for the age, George and Sarah sign a marriage agreement several days before they are wed, protecting in a limited way Sarah’s individual property. Under the terms of this contract, Sarah gives ownership of her slaves to her husband for the length of her marriage, but regains possession of them should her husband die and there be no offspring between them. Under these same conditions, Sarah is promised as dower 400 acres of her husband’s land at Dogues Neck.

Over the years, it has been pointed out that the marriage agreement between Sarah and George indicates that their relationship was more business-like and convenient, rather than loving. However, the marriage compact also can be seen as a fair solution between two practical people who want to safeguard their property for future generations — Mason for his children and Sarah for the sons and daughters of her sister Jean in Dumfries. In Sarah’s will of 1794, she indeed does pass on to these children and one of their offspring the slaves she regains upon the death of her husband.

At her marriage, Sarah brings to the household her ten-year-old nephew, George Graham, eldest son of her sister Jean. George is the same age as George Mason’s youngest son, Thomas, and eventually is sent away to school with Thomas and John. To our 20th-century eyes, it may appear unusual that George Graham moves from his own home to that of his aunt. However, gentry families often made various arrangements to offer sons a proper education, including periods of time spent with relatives.

During marriage to George Mason, Sarah has the opportunity to live at Gunston Hall with most, if not all, of George Mason’s children. When she enters the household in 1780, at least six children are at home: Nancy is 25; Thomson is 21; Mary, 18; John, 14; Elizabeth, 12; and Thomas, ten. Also, George and William both live at Gunston Hall during a portion of the 1780s, George with a wife and children. Nancy and Sarah remain in the house together for nine years, until Nancy’s marriage to Rinaldo Johnson. This sizeable length of co-habitation seems to indicate that the two women, both mistresses of Gunston Hall at different times, had at the very least a cordial relationship.

The relationship with another Mason daughter, Mary, may have more the cordial. In her will, Sarah bequeaths to Mary a mourning ring commemorating George Mason’s death. This gift seems to reflect affection for this young woman, although there also is a connection between the Cook family, into which Mary married, and the Brents.

Not a great deal is known about the marriage of George and Sarah Mason. However, signs exist of an amiable relationship. We should note that Sarah did not have to marry at all, since her father’s will provided her with a home and an annual allotment of 25 pounds for as long as she was single. It is possibly the union of George and Sarah that brings about the re-decoration of the mansion in the latter years of Mason’s life. If this is indeed the case, the decision to give a new look to the house appears to reflect a bond between the couple.

Existing correspondence indicates some level of care, perhaps affection, of George for his wife. In 1783, Col. Mason writes to his son George in France, thanking him for obtaining a watch for his stepmother. While at the Federal Convention in 1787, George keeps in touch at least once with Sarah, enclosing a letter for her in his letter to his eldest son. Unfortunately, this correspondence has not been located. In 1791, Sarah breaks her leg and in September 1792, a month before his death, George offers an update on her health to son John. He relates that she is “still unable to walk a step, ‘tho- I think she begins to gain her strength in her leg and foot.”

Sarah Brent accompanies George Mason through some of the hardest trials of his life. They are together during the final period of the American Revolution, when fighting in Virginia leads Mason to move his wife and younger children across the Potomac River to the Eilbeck home, Mattawoman, for safety. Perhaps it was Sarah who consoled George after his Constitutional defeat in Philadelphia and again after the ratification convention in Richmond. Sarah is present during the final month of Mason’s life, when he remarks to his son, “I hardly remember so sickly a Season.” George comments on his own “troublesome Cough,” but also on the poor health of son William, daughter Betsey, and his wife.

At George Mason’s death, after twelve years of marriage, Sarah probably moves to Dumfries to live with her sister Jean. Rather than claiming the 400 acres cited in her marriage compact, Sarah agrees to a financial arrangement with her stepson, George. This settlement consists of a sum of 35 pounds monthly, promised for the remainder of her life. Sarah dies in 1805 or 1806. We are not certain where she is buried, although there is a Brent burying ground not far from the former site of Woodstock.


Bibliography

Brent, Chester Horton. The Descendants of Coll Giles Brent, Captain George Brent, and Robert Brent. Privately published. 1946.

Copeland, Pamela C. and Richard K. Macmaster. The Five George Masons: Patriots and Planters of Virginia and Maryland. Lorton, Virginia: The Board of Regents of Gunston Hall, 1989. Reprint.

Rutland, Robert A., ed. The Papers of George Mason. 3 vols. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1970.

Smith, Daniel Blake. Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.

Unpublished research files, Gunston Hall Plantation, “Brent Family,” “George Brent,” and “Sarah Brent Mason.”

a woodcut image of enslaved men processing tobacco for shipment.

Enslaved People at Gunston Hall

During the 18th century, the Masons kept hundreds of people enslaved at Gunston Hall.  Some people such as Anthony and Sabrina were inherited by George.  Ann likely brought several people with her when she and George married.  Other people such as Kack and Daphne were likely born on the plantation.  Sarah Brent brought yet more people with her when she and George married 8 years after Ann’s death. 

By examining documents such as Mason’s will and correspondence, and conducting archaeological explorations, we have started to piece together information about the lives of people enslaved by the Mason family.

Gunston Hall’s enslaved workers did a tremendous range of work. For instance, people such as Poll cleaned the mansion, prepared the Masons’ food, washed the laundry, tended the chickens, and cared for the kitchen garden.

Other enslaved people, including Great Sue, worked the tobacco and wheat fields. And still more people held in bondage provided the skilled work that kept the community running. Liberty did carpentry, and one person remembered that Gunston Hall’s community of enslaved people also included “coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers & knitters, and even a distiller.”

When we compare the food remains in a trash pit near homes of people who were enslaved with trash deposits adjacent to the mansion, we can peek into their daily lives.  Enslaved residents of Gunston Hall seem to have eaten much more fish than their owners did. They also ate a lot of small game animals. In contrast, the Masons’ trash suggests the people in the mansion mainly ate domesticated animals.  One written record from the year after George Mason’s death indicates that the Masons purchased–at least once–herring and the salt to cure it for the people they kept in slavery.

Learn more about some of the individuals kept in slavery at Gunston Hall.  For more information about people enslaved at Gunston Hall please take a tour, schedule an appointment in the research library, or read Among His Slaves: George Mason’s Struggle with Slavery by Terry K. Dunn.

Ancilla and Bridget

Ancilla and Bridget may have worked  in plantation houses or kitchen yards, cleaning, doing laundry, or caring for children. Although the Mason family transferred them from household to household, they were kept together. Might they have been sisters? 

Ancilla and Bridget “and their future increase” (or descendants) were traded among Mason family members to pay several debts. The chattel slavery system meant that under the law Bridget and Ancilla were property, rather than human beings with the same fundamental rights of all people. The Masons determined Ancilla’s and Bridget’s monetary worth based on their ability to work and the likelihood that they would have children.  

In 1760, Ancilla and Bridget were sold to Ann Thompson Mason, and they served her until she died  just two years later. They spent the rest of their lives under the ownership of George Mason.

Yellow Dick

Born in 1762, Dick served at table at Gunston Hall and later worked for George Mason’s son, George, at his property at Lexington Plantation, originally a part of Gunston Hall plantation. Dick is one of the many enslaved people the Masons and the Eilbecks (George Mason’s wife’s family) moved around. Family members often transferred their enslaved workers to other family members. Dick ran away from Lexington in 1784 at age 22, and an advertisement offered a reward of £5 for his return. Runaway ads from 1786 and 1787 show that he ran away again. It is possible that Dick was not caught this second time.

Liberty

Born around 1747, Liberty was a skilled carpenter. After George Mason’s death, he was enslaved to George Mason’s son, George.  Carpentry was a skill often passed down to family members. Liberty may have been related to the enslaved carpenters who built Gunston Hall. Like many people enslaved in colonial Virginia, Liberty either did not have a last name or his last name was not recorded.

Nace

Nace was skilled at handling and breaking horses. His talent allowed him to earn some wages from a neighboring plantation owner, Martin Cockburn. Cockburn’s accounts show that he paid Nace several times over an eight-year period for work with horses. Nace had substantial responsibilities. He was described as a “black overseer” in a 1797 document. In this role he disciplined and directed the work of other enslaved people who worked on one of Gunston Hall’s four “farms” or “quarters.” The position of overseer was normally held by white men.

Priss

Priss was the child companion of George and Ann Eilbeck Mason’s daughter. Amongst gentry families in George Mason’s day,  a grandfather might provide his grandchild with a similarly aged enslaved child. Such was the case with Priss, who was born enslaved in 1758. Parents and other relatives also sometimes gave enslaved children as gifts to wealthy free children. At the age of seven, Priss became the property of three-year-old Sarah Mason.

Sampson

Sampson was enslaved by George Mason’s wife’s family, the Eilbecks.  He was born in 1762 on their Mattawoman Plantation, located in southern Maryland. His mother was Bess, who gave birth to at least seven enslaved children. A 1662 Virginia law made enslavement a hereditary institution that passed through the maternal line.