past 4 P.M....

Members of the Bar and Officers of the Courts of Alexandria County voted to:

... attend his funeral ... and wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days ... that a committee of three be appointed respectively to tender them [family] our condolence ... that the proceeding of the meeting be published in the Alexandria Gazette....

The Bar and Officers of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia voted to:

... attend his funeral, and, during the residue of the term, wear the usual badges of mourning ... that the Chairman [Francis Scott Key] with Richard Coxe and Alexander Hunter, Esqrs., be a Committee to tender to the family of the deceased the sympathy of this meeting at the death of one endeared to us by long acquaintance, which has made known the character of the deceased as one deserving of our warmest personal regard and highest respect, and which rendered this event a great public loss, as well as a private affliction....

T. F. Mason had been appointed to the newly organized Criminal Court of the District of Columbia less than six months before his death. He was the first judge appointed to that court, and its only judge during its formative period. As a Justice of Peace he had received his first appointment in February 1828, and was reappointed in 1833, and 1838.[14]

The story of Mason's life presented here is only a partial one but it is included to show something of the type of man who built Huntley.[15]

Chapter 1 Notes