Isaac Meason had formidable presence in Fayette County

While driving down Route 119 in Fayette County, about 7 miles northeast of Uniontown, motorists are likely to notice an imposing stone house.

This building was once the residence of Isaac Meason, a Virginia expatriate who dwelt there in the early 19th century.

Although Meason had chosen to call his residence Mt. Braddock, that name had not originated locally with him. Furthermore, he was not the original owner of the land upon which Mt. Braddock stood.

The noted frontier explorer, Christopher Gist, initially had claimed that real estate around 1750. Upon this landholding, moreover, he established the first English settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Gist was in residence, in June 1755, when Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock's expeditionary force passed by during his abortive campaign to capture Fort Duquesne, the French bastion at the Ohio River's headwaters.

Following their disastrous defeat, on July 9, the battered remnants of Braddock's army sought refuge at Gist's stockade. Subsequently, vengeful Franco-Indian War parties began appearing in the area. Gist and his fellow settlers, therefore, fled southward into Virginia.

After the French and Indian War, though, Gist chose not to return to the region. He reportedly located to the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina.

Accordingly, his son, Thomas Gist (circa 1765) resettled upon the property which stood at the foot of Chestnut Ridge western slope. His farm, was adjacent to Braddock's Road, the primary northern route out of Virginia.

Some historians have claimed the younger Gist began calling his “plantation” Mt. Braddock.

On Oct. 13, 1770, George Washington and his traveling companions made a brief stopover at Gist's place. Washington later wrote in a journal that Mt. Braddock “lay level,” as well as possessed soil “as rich and black as any could possibly be.”

He also noted the farm was surrounded in abundance by white oak trees. Washington did not return to the region for another 14 years.

During his second trip, the September 1784, Gist provided Washington's party with a noonday meal. At that point, another Virginian, Isaac Meason, already had settled in the vicinity, not far from Gist's property.

Isaac Meason was born in June 1743, in Henrico County, Virginia. He eventually followed Braddock's Road through the Allegheny Mountains into western Pennsylvania around 1770.

Within a few years, he had purchased 300 acres from Thomas Gist. In addition to developing a farm, Meason reportedly held several minor local public offices prior to the American revolution.

With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary war, in April 1775, Meason supported “independency” from Great Britain. Initially, he served as a captain in a company of Westmoreland County militia, then the official local jurisdiction.

Meason later served within a Pennsylvania volunteer regiment, under Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne, which was attached to the Continental Army. Throughout the summer of 1777, he participated within the various battles that were fought around Philadelphia.

By December 1777, however, Meason had returned to western Pennsylvania. For the rest of his life he often was referred to as Capt. Meason.

On April 28, 1778 Thomas Gist — the local magistrate — officiated over the marriage of Isaac Meason and Catherine Harrison of Winchester Va. For some reason, though, the couple chose not to announce publicly their nuptials for many months. This union ultimately produced two sons and a daughter.

In October 1779, Westmoreland County voters elected Meason to be their representative to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. By 1783, Meason was elevated to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. He also was a strong advocate that Pennsylvania ratify the new Federal Constitution in 1787. At that point, Meason retired permanently as an active politician.

By 1790, Thomas Gist was deceased and Meason had purchased most of his landholdings. In fact, Meason already had acquired extensive acreage throughout western Pennsylvania. But he was not content to remain a farmer, as well as land speculator.

Meason was aware that Col. William Crawford of New Haven Farm (Connellsville), in 1781, had been intending to mine a “bank of iron ore” upon a local farm situated along the Youghiogheny River. Unfortunately, though, in June 1782, Crawford was killed by the enemy warriors at Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

Within several years of Crawford's death, therefore, Meason had bought that property and commenced to extract that iron ore. Since that locale also possessed thick woods and additional iron deposits, Meason sought to establish an iron smelting operation.

Meason organized a partnership with Morton Dillon and John Gibson in 1791. Subsequently, they established Union Furnace, the first successful iron works beyond the Allegheny Mountains.

A couple of years later Gibson left the business. Meason, Dillon and company later built a larger foundry. Various observers agreed that the partners owned the finest blast furnace in North America.

They produced a wide variety of useful products, including stoves, pots, kettles and skillets. In essence, the company was providing the necessary commodities for the thousands of migrants heading westward into the Ohio River Valley.

Their works was located approximately 15 miles east of Brownsville, a major town upon the Monongahela River. During the next decade, Meason had created several other smaller pyramidal furnaces around the region.

Meason traveled to Great Britain to study the burgeoning British iron and steel industry in 1798. And he was intent particularly on analyzing the country's techniques in constructing iron bridges.

Consequently, he hired an English architect, Adam Wilson, to build comparable structures in western Pennsylvania.

During the next several years, Meason's builder had erected three iron spans within the Youghiogheny River Valley. The most notable span crossed that river in Connellsville.

Further north a second bridge spanned Jacobs Creek. The third structure was situated at Big Sewickley Creek, not far from Simeral's Ferry (West Newton). Meanwhile, Meason devised a second task for his English architect.

By 1803, Wilson had designed for him a spacious mansion made primarily made from cut limestone. Meason's house is the only seven-part residential structure ever built within the United States.

As the architectural historian Franklin Tokar has written: “The Meason house is not only the most important early house in western Pennsylvania, but also one of the most significant homes dating from the early republic anywhere in the country.”

Meason's notable dwelling certainly was meant to resemble the stately colonial plantation houses of his native Virginia.

In any case he revived the name of Mt. Braddock for his new home.

Over the years, Meason had purchased 30,000 acres of real estate in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. Not surprisingly, many of these tracts contained valuable mineral deposits, especially coal and iron ore.

Among numerous other diverse investments was a lucrative salt works in Bedford County. By 1810, Meason was among the wealthiest men in Pennsylvania.

Furthermore, two years later Meason agreed to meet with Thomas C. Lewis, a recent Welsh immigrant. Lewis was intent upon establishing a mill designed specifically for rolling wrought iron into solid bars, a process he had learned in his native Wales.

Nonetheless, no major iron master on the Atlantic seaboard was interested in helping him.

But Meason quickly discerned the potential in financially backing Lewis's proposed enterprise. In 1816, the partners erected Ross Furnace, which stood northwest of Ligonier in Fairfield Township, Westmoreland County. This new industrial plant was an important step within the development of the iron and steel industry in western Pennsylvania. Interestingly, Ross Furnace remains standing in 2013.

Meason entered into this last great investment as his health was declining. Consequently, he was not involved in managing Ross Furnace. He already had turned over his diverse business interests to his sons.

He passed away quietly, on Jan. 23, 1818 in Mt. Braddock. This stately mansion remains a tangible reminder of Isaac Meason's once formidable presence in western Pennsylvania's affairs.

Exploring History appears in The Independent-Observer periodically. The author holds a doctorate in history from the University of South Carolina.