Rev. Charles Mason

Rev. Charles Mason

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79828301/charles-mason

DEATH OF THE REV. DR. CHARLES MASON

From the "Witness and Advocate" March 28, 1862 and the Memoir of Rev. Charles Mason, D.D. written by Rev. A.P.Peabody, D.D. Boston, 1863.

We record this week with deepest sorrow, of the death of one of our most highly respected and best beloved clergymen, The Rev. Dr. Charles Mason, D.D., Rector of Grace Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Never has our pen performed a more painful office. We can hardly realize that what we write is true, while we make the announcement that a friend and brother has departed, whose praise is in all our churches, and with whom we have never associated the thought of death, so uniform has been his health, and so unfailing his discharge of duty. This diocese never mourned a greater loss. Our Bishop and Clergy grieve for him as under the pressure of a personal sorrow. Our whole community feel that a good man has departed from among us. His stricken parish are weeping in surprised bereavement. And we have not words to speak of that affectionate family, whose genial light has been so unexpectedly darkened by this painful visitation.

Rev. Dr. Mason died of Typhoid fever, at his residence in Tremont Street, Boston at 4:00am on Sunday Morning. The fact was announced in several of our churches and prayers were offered with deep sympathy for his afflicted family. Bishop Eastburn, we learn, made a touching allusion to the event, and to the Christian character of our departed brother in his address to the candidates for confirmation, at Trinity Church, on the morning of that day.

Rev. Dr. Mason was the youngest son of the Hon. Jeremiah and Mary Mason and had many of the intellectual characteristics for which his father was so highly distinguished. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire July 25, 1812 and has thus been taken away in the prime of life, having only just past the 49th year of his age.

He graduated with distinguished honors at Harvard College in 1832 and finished his theological studies at the General Theological Seminary. Soon after his ordination, he became Rector of St. Peter's Church in Salem, in May of 1837; and resigned that parish in May 1847 to enter upon the rectorship of Grace Church, in Boston, Mass.

Few men, in the course of a ministry of ten years, have ever made so deep an impression upon the respect and affection of any people as that which was made by Rev. Dr. Mason upon young and old in the parish of St. Peter's Church.

Rev Dr. Mason's domestic life, except for the shadow of one great grief, the loss of his elder brother was singularly happy. He married Susanna Lawrence, in 1837 she was the daughter of the late Amos Lawrence, with whose family he was already intimately connected; his mother's sister having become the second wife of Amos Lawrence. Susanna died at 29 years of age on December 2nd 1844, leaving 3 daughters and 1 son.

Rev Dr Mason in 1849 married Anna Huntington Lyman of Northampton, daughter of the late Johnathan H. Lyman of Northampton, a distinguished lawyer.

Late in December 1862, Rev Dr. Mason made a brief and rapid journey to Washington DC and returned, as he supposed, suffering under unusual and extreme weariness. He, however seemed to recover from his fatigue and after a few days resumed his duties, apparently in perfect health. But weather in consequence of an undue strain upon his vital energies, or of some morbid infection contracted during his absence, or, it may be, without any predisposing cause that could be traced, symptoms of an alarming disease were soon developed, and typhoid fever set in. While his consciousness remained unimpaired, he manifested under great depression and pain. He knew that he was very ill; but before he had been made aware of the extremity of his danger; indeed, while physicians and friends still cherished some hope of his restoration, he passed into a comatose state and thence sank into painless dissolution passing away Sunday morning March 23, 1862.

The funeral services were held at Grace Church on Wednesday, the 26th 1862, at half past 1pm. The church was to it's utmost capacity with a large and deeply sympathizing congregation. The solemn Committal Service was then read by the bishop; after which, the remains were borne from the church as they had entered it, to be deposited in their last resting place at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston.

• Census: 1860 - 6th Ward Boston City, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA
• Residence: 6th Ward Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States6th Ward Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States - 1860
• Residence: Boston, MA - Mar 23 1862
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Sep 22 2023, 11:22:35 UTC