George Mason V & Elizabeth Mary Anne Barnes Hooe: A Model of Elite Virginia Marriage
Portrait of George Mason V of Lexington, c. 1790 by unknown artist (Courtesy of the Board of Regents, Gunston Hall)
On March 24, 1784, George Mason IV wrote to Arthur Lee that his son, George Mason V was en route to Annapolis, Maryland, “to furnish himself with some matrimonial Aparatus.”[1] The next day, George Mason IV placed a notice in the Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser for “any person who will undertake to build a Dwelling-House, to contain twelve hundred square feet.” Mason’s advertisement signaled his intention for constructing a mansion at the Lexington estate in Fairfax County, Virginia, in celebration of his son’s pending union to Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe.[2]
Drawing of Barnesfield, the Ancestral Home of Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe from Historic Virginia Homes and Churches
According to historian Suzanne Lebsock, “marriage was a material investment with material consequences” for Virginians of the late-eighteenth century, who were “obstinately aware of the economic dimensions of matrimony.”[3] The union of George Mason V to Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe on April 22, 1784, fit this standard. The Mason and Hooe families had Virginia ancestry dating back to the 1600s. Both families possessed large holdings of land and human chattel along the Potomac River, which they then bequeathed to subsequent generations. George Mason V was the eldest son and thereby stood to inherit the bulk of his father’s estate, while Elizabeth M. A. B. Hooe was the eldest of Gerard and Sarah Hooe’s two children—both daughters—and was well-positioned to inherit at least half of her parents’ wealth (though that would change when her brother, Abraham Barnes Hooe, was born five months after her marriage to George Mason V). Taken together, the union of George Mason V and Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe was an advantageous marriage for both parties.
In this 1747 map by Warner & Fairfax, the word "Mason" faintly appears above a house icon to indicate that the Masons were established property holders in Virginia along the Potomac River. Farther down the Potomac River was the Hooe family property of Barnesfield, located to the right of the "Mathias Pt" label. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)
[1] George Mason to Arthur Lee, March 24, 1784, in The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792, Volume II: 1779-1786, ed. Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1970), 797-798. While George Mason IV was not specific on the “Aparatus” being furnished, it is possible that it was a chariot. In 1787, George Mason V advertised for sale “a Post-Chaise or Chariot, with Harness complete for four horses.—It was imported from London in 1784.” George Mason V claimed that its “body is roomy and mounted on iron crane-necks.” See Advertisement by George Mason, Jun., Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, September 13, 1787. In an October 1784 advertisement, George Mason V had auctioned off “an elegant Phaeton”; see Advertisement by George Mason, Jun., Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, October 16, 1784. Since a post-chaise was an upgrade over a phaeton, it is possible that George Mason V had upgraded his transportation method to align with his newly-married status.
[2] Newspaper Advertisement by George Mason, Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, March 25, 1784, in The Papers of George Mason, Volume II, ed. Rutland, 799. George Mason IV’s advertisement promised “good encouragement and punctual payments,” as well as a willingness to “furnish materials,” demonstrating Mason’s eagerness to build a proper dwelling for his son and daughter-in-law at Lexington.
[3] Suzanne Lebsock, The Free Women of Petersburg (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984), 19. Generations of Masons and Hooes had married advantageously in an effort to solidify their social and economic well-being. For example, here is how historian Lorri Glover describes how George Mason IV’s approach to marriage: “In 1750 [George Mason IV] married sixteen-year-old Ann Eilbeck. Her father, William Eilbeck, was not only a longtime family friend and business ally, but also one of the richest men in Charles County. And he had but one heir: Ann. (Apparently his father’s example showed Mason the advantage of courting a woman whose rich father had no sons.)” See Lorri Glover, Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 12.