Charles Mason

Many people are familiar with the fact that Robert E. Lee was ranked second in the class of 1829 at West Point, but do you know the man who was ranked ahead of him? His name was Charles Mason, and despite his relative obscurity now, he was a well-known public figure in his lifetime.

Mason was born 24 October 1804 in New York, sixth out of seven children. In 1825, he went to West Point, where he came in first in his class—ahead of later Civil War general Robert E. Lee (Mason scored 1995.5 points to Lee’s 1966.5). After graduating, Mason stayed on as an assistant professor of engineering for two years, after which he left the military to study law, passing the bar in 1832. He practiced for two years in New York but then moved to Washington DC and became acting editor of the New York Evening Post until 1836. He then moved to the territory of Wisconsin, where he became the district attorney for Des Moines County.

In 1838, after Iowa became a territory, Mason was appointed the first chief justice of the Territorial Supreme Court and filled that position until 1847. The following year, the governor appointed him to represent Iowa in a border dispute with Missouri, a case which Mason won. Around this same time, Mason was also on a commission to create Iowa’s code of laws, which was accepted in 1851. From 1851 to 1852 he was the judge of the Des Moines County court.

In 1853, President Pierce appointed Mason as the US Commissioner of Patents. He stayed in that role until 1857, when he resigned over dissatisfaction with the Buchanan administration. After that, Mason went back to Iowa and served on the State Board of Education. In 1861, he was nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor but withdrew when the Democrats split. That same year, he started his own patent law firm back in Washington DC, and in the 1864 election (in which he opposed Lincoln’s election) Mason was chair of the Democratic National Central Committee; he continued on the committee (as well as being the delegate from Iowa to the Democratic national conventions) in the elections of 1868 and 1872 as well. In 1867, he again ran for governor of Iowa but lost.

After that he served locally in his town of Burlington, including as president of the Burlington Water Company, the Burlington Street Railway Company, the Burlington & North Western Railway, and the Burlington, Keosauqua & Western Railway Company. He also was chair of the German-American Savings Bank and treasurer of the Burlington school board. Mason died at home in Iowa on 25 February 1882, at the age of 77.

Read more about Charles Mason here or here. Find contemporary mentions of Mason in Fold3’s historical Newspapers collection.

The Man Who Beat Lee at West Point