1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

George C. Mason, of Arcadia, is one of the stock farmers of his township, and he has followed out a career that has been unusually successful, viewed both from the standpoint of material circumstances and that of personal worth and character. He has spent most of his life in Crawford county, and his family is one of the old and prominent names of the county, with residence here since 1869, only a year or so after the county was organized and when primitive conditions of living were manifest on all sides.

Mr. Mason was born December 30, 1853, in the state of Kentucky. His parents, J. G. and Eliza (Wilson) Mason, natives of Virginia, in 1869 came west from Kentucky and took up their abode on the still wild and virgin prairies of Crawford county. They were very successful people, and by their industry and good management as farmers had accumulated, at the time of their death, six hundred acres of choice land in the vicinity of Arcadia. J. G. Mason died here July 28, 1895, at the age of seventy-three, and his good wife passed away on August 14, 1899, being seventy-one years old.

Mr. George C. Mason was reared and educated in the states of Kentucky and Kansas, and took up the occupation of farming when twenty years old. Though a stanch Democrat in politics, Mr. Mason has little time to devote to such matters. He and his wife are both members of the Corinth Christian church in Lincoln township, and Mrs. Mason is a member of the ladies' aid society.

December 2, 1875, Mr. Mason married Miss Mary E. James. Her father, John W. James, a veritable pioneer of pioneers in this county, was born in Morgan county, Illinois, May 16, 1824, and was reared and educated there. In 1858, almost ten years before Crawford county was organized and when this section of the state was still known as the Neutral Lands, he came to Arcadia and located on the farm on which his widow until recently resided. He married, March 21, 1850, Caroline Williamson, who was born November 28, 1828, and died October 9, 1904. Mr. James died February 3, 1870.