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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 BIg D, Connecticut, where he died in 1672.
There is a statue of Major John Mason in the Palisado Green in Windsor, Connecticut. A map of the statue location.
The John Mason statue was originally placed at the intersection of Pequot Avenue and Clift Street in Mystic, Connecticut near what was thought to be one of the original Pequot forts. The statue remained there for 103 years until a commission chartered by the town of Groton to study the sensitivity and appropriateness of the statues location voted to have it relocated. The State then stepped in and in 1993 relocated the statue to its current setting. An article about the work of the committee can be found at http://archnet.asu.edu/archives/ethno/Courant/day5.htm

Contents

See also

Further reading

See also

★ Robert Seeley

★ John Oldham

Further reading

★ Mason, John. ''A Brief History of the Pequot War'' (1736) (reprinted by J. Sabin & sons, 1869)

★ Mason, John. ''A Brief History of the Pequot War'' (1736) (annotated online electronic text edition [pdf])

★ 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)