John Mason

Who was John Mason?

Captain John Mason was a sailor and colonizer born at King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, and educated at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He was appointed the second Proprietary Governor of Newfoundland's Cuper's Cove colony in 1615, succeeding John Guy. Mason arrived on the island in 1616 and explored much of the territory. He compiled a map of the island and wrote and published a short tract of his findings.

Mason drew up the first known English map of the island of Newfoundland. Published in William Vaughan's Cambrensium Caroleia in 1625, the map included previously established placenames as well as new ones such as Bristol's Hope and Butter Pots, near Renews. His tract entitled A Briefe Discourse of the New-Found-Land with the situation, temperature, and commodities thereof, inciting our nation to go forward in the hopefull plantation begunne, was published in 1620 by Mason while in England.

In 1620 King James I's Privy Council issued Mason a commission and provided him with a ship to suppress piracy in Newfoundland. Mason ceased to be Cuper's Cove governor in 1621 and apparently he was not replaced, although the settlement continued to be occupied throughout the seventeenth century.