Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in Jefferson County, 1931 Frederick Darwin Mason

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Thursday, July 2, 1931
Front Page

Who's Who In Jefferson County
By Herbert F. McDougal

FRED D. MASON

Fred D. Mason, widely known through his connections with Parsons college, the Security Abstract and Loan Company and other activities here, for thirty years has been engaged in one of the oddest and most fascinating businesses in the country. During that time he has traced down as many clues as Sherlock Holmes and discovered the fate of many men.

All of which requires a bit of explaining. It means that he has been in the government land scrip business, discovering proving and buying the claims of Civil War veterans to government land. These in turn are sold to persons and corporations who wish to acquire quickly ownership of tracts of land which they need, largely for the location of industrial plants.

The work of acquiring these claims is complicated and requires patience. Not one in twenty-five clues leads to results. A case will be on hand for years and then suddenly fade out or as suddenly come to fruition. Now that most of the Civil War veterans have passed on the work is more intricate as proof is harder and one must deal with the heirs instead of principals. But there is still and (sic) active demand for scrip, and Mr. Mason's long experience makes him one of the most capable of those in the business.

To follow one of his investigations is almost like following a mystery story, as just one example out of hundreds will show.

More than twenty years ago, Mr. Mason began in a routine way, to trace the case of Harvey B. Weltch, a Michigan soldier who had entered eighty acres of land in Minnesota and thus had fulfilled the resuirements (sic) that entitled him to a quarter section. That left him a right to eighty acres more. Many letters were written over the course of three or four years and then the trail ended. But Mr. Mason carries the details of many cases in his mind, so that when he chanced to be in Mankato, Minn., a year or two ago with some spare time on his hands, he remembered that it was there that Mr. Weltch's trail had ended. So he went to the court house to look up the death records. There was no record of Mr. Weltch's death, but an entry showing the death of an infant son. This gave the maiden name of the wife, and Mr. Mason up to that time, did not know of any wife. Investigation of the deed records showed a parcel of land once owned, but taken by mortgage, so the trail ended again. But some one told him of a Mankato man named Welch--who proved to be no relation. But the fact tha the original Weltch had entered the army as a farrier, brought the suggestion that an old blacksmith in Mankato might be helpful. This smithy was visited, but his memory was dim until Mr. Mason suggested that Weltch had married a woman named "Mary Ann" something. Than (sic) helped the smithy's recollection and he remembered some relatives and a man who once knew Weltch. Mr. Mason wrote letters, got replies that finally located an only son at Billings Mont. Affidavits were procured establishing identity and the ruling that a man "lost" for seven years is legally dead, made the case good and Mr. Mason bought the scrip. In the final investigation, (it) was disclosed that the son did not know that his father ever had been a soldier although he could dimly remember an old army blue overcoat with brass buttons. As to the fate of the old soldier, it was known only that fifty years before he had gone away from home to find work and had written that he had found it in a harvest field. That was the last ever heard of him, although many efforts were made to discover his whereabouts. It was surmised that he had been murdered.

But law is Mr. Mason's real profession. He "read law" after the fashion of the times, under Judge J. S. Townsend of Albia for two years and then took his examination for the bar before the supreme court of the state and was admitted to practice in 1894. For ten years he practiced in Albia. He married Miss Laura Dashiell of that city June 7, 1899, and five years later they moved to Lincoln, Nebr., where he took up the land scrip business and where he also was secretary and member of the board of directors of the Security Mutual Life Insurance company of Lincoln, member and secretary of the board of the city Y. M. C. A. and member of the board of trustees of the Westminster Foundation.

In 1919 Mr. Mason came to Fairfield as treasurer and business manager of Parsons college. That fall the college had an enrollment of 98 and he watched it grow until it reached its high mark of 509 students in 1925-6. He resigned from the office of business manager in 1929, but still is a member of the board of trustees, a connection he has held for 22 years. He was president of the board at one time.

Mr. Mason has been active in many things--an elder in the Presbyterian church for 38 years; president of the Security Abstract and Loan company; member of the Wit & Wisdom club; director in the Iowa State Savings bank and participant in many other social and civic enterprises.

He was born in Albia in a house on what is now U S. Highway 34. His father was at that time county judge. Soon however, the family moved back to the farm and Mr. Mason was brought up there. He attended the country schools and then finished the Albia grade and high schools. He came to Parsons academy in 1895 and received his A. B. degree from the college in 1891, his master's degree in 1893 and an honorary LL.D. in 1916. The Masons have four children--Laurens D. instructor in English in the Compton, Calif., Junior college; Mrs. William Cuddy of Fairfield; Frederick, a student assistant in the department of geology in the University of Southern California, and Paul, who now is a student in the law school of the University of Southern California.