MARTIN MASON, SR., was born in Germany in 1742, and emigrated with his parents to America in 1745, and settled on the south branch of Elie Potomac river, in Virginia. When he was about thirteen years of age, in 1755, he was captured by the Indians. This occurred about two weeks after the disastrous defeat of General Braddock, when on his way to attack Fort DuQuesne. Young Mason was taken by the Indians to the fort, and thence, by Niagara, to Canada, where he was purchased by a French officer at Montreal. When General Wolfe captured Quebec, in 1759, Young Mason was ordered by his master, to conduct the family to a neighboring swamp for safety during the battle. Four years after the surrender of the city to the English, in 1763, he was liberated and returned home, after an absence of about eight years, where he remained until his marriage. He subsequently removed to what is now Fayette county, Pennsylvania; and located land by "tomahawk right," which consisted in blazing trees around the tract selected and having it surveyed and recorded, all of which cost out a trifle. This was four or five years after the Dunmore war, when with his neighbors, he was greatly harassed by the Indians for a number of years.
Mr. Mason died at an advanced age in the old homestead of the late Jacob Mason, in Orange in 1838, aged ninety-six year, leaving nine children: Elizabeth, Barbara, Margaret, Abigail, Mary, John, Martin, Charles, and Jacob. Martin and Jacob located in Orange Township, Ashland County, and Charles in Columbiana County, Ohio.
He was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, February 16, 1780, and died in Columbiana County, in April, 1869, aged about eighty-nine years. He had four sons, John, Martin, Jacob, and Lewis. Martin emigrated to Ashland county in 1844 and settled on a quarter of land purchased by his father in 1814.
[FROM BIO OF JACOB CROUSE, RICHLAND CO., OH:]
In January, 1814, Martin Mason and Jacob Young visited the regions of Jeromeville, Loudonville, Mansfield, Ashland, and Orange township, with the view of locating wild lands. Their report of the new country was so flattering that they concluded to enter a number of tracts, at the land office in Canton, and return, with others, and put up cabins. In August, Martin Mason, Jacob Mason, Jacob Crouse, Martin Hester, Lot Tod, and Peter Biddinger returned and erected six cabins on lands since owned by the respective parties, and cut and cured a lot of prairie hay, and made preparations to bring on their families, and returned.
In October, 1814, Martin Mason, Jacob Crouse, Jacob Young, Joseph Bishop, and their families, removed to their new cabins on the branches of the Mohican. The new colony, including old and young, numbered thirty-one. The route was along the old army trail to Jerome's block-house, and the home of John Carr, now the Nailor farm, where they rested one night, in his cabin, having slept or tented in the air, the entire distance. From thence, they cut a wagon-path up the east side of the Jerome fork, across lands now owned by Joseph Chandler, and thence, across Catotawa, to the cabin formerly owned by Daniel Mickey, now by Andrew Mason, to the cabin of Jacob Young, some distance west of the present Crouse school house, where they all rested one night.
