James, The Livery

Ann Thomson Mason's Will

The only enslaved person mentioned by name in John Mason's Recollections was his father's manservant, or livery, named James.[1] Unfortunately, the story of James appears as an incomplete sketch in the son's memoir, and so we know only a few things about the enslaved man who waited on the needs of the man who wrote the precursor to the Declaration of Independence. James could have been the same individual listed in Ann Thomson Mason's Will as Jammy, the son of Letty who was an enslaved domestic in Ann Thomson Mason's Stafford home. Based on this information we might  assume that James and Letty came to Gunston Hall in 1763 after the death of Ann Thomson Mason, George Mason's IV's mother.[2] There are no existing records showing how James came to be owned by the owner of Gunston Hall.[3] 

 Archival evidence indicates that the father of James was probably a white man. In certain historical records James was described as "Mullatto."[4] It is possible that he was conceived in a consensual relationship involving Letty and one of the paid white workers at Ann Thomson Mason's home in Stafford, Virginia.  It is equally possible that James was born after a sexual assault carried out by a white man who had access to the Stafford property.[5]

We do not know the age at which James became George Mason IV's livery but we could reasonable assume that they traveled together on the master's business to Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia, and perhaps as far as Philadelphia where official discussions of American constitutional matters took place.[6]These journeys exposed James to different settings far from Gunston Hall. If James did indeed visit Philadelphia as a manservant, he could have witnessed life in and around a well-established free black community.  Back on the plantation James was also exposed to prominent figures in the 1770s agitating for revolution and independence.  He answered the front door when distinguished guests like George and Martha Washington visited the slaveholding Masons. Before these occasions and probably following the morning routine, John Mason notes in his Recollections that James was also tasked with dressing his father's wig. James' proximity to his owner doubtlessly afforded this manservant better social status in a hierarchy of bondspeople working in the house and the field.[7]

James wore a livery uniform, which George Mason IV bought.  This outfit was different from the cheap and rough clothes supplied in bulk to enslaved people of Gunston Hall.[8] In William Carlin's original "Account Book," which is held in archival collections of the Library of the National Museum of American History, there is a written entry showing that Mason paid Carlin, a tailor, money for making a livery suit for "his man James".[9]  The same financial record shows that Carlin was also employed to manufacture clothes for the Mason children. 

There is no record of James' death or of his owner selling him. In addition, the name James does not appear in George Mason IV's Will.  The servant who aided his master everyday and for many years has been lost in time.