Secrets of the Blue Ridge: W. Roy Mason: Faithful Under Fire

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By Phil James

Constructed of native stone by the skilled hands of local mountain craftsmen, “St. Anne’s Preventorium for rebuilding children,” at Mission Home, Greene Co., was built with the oversight of Rev. Roy Mason in 1931. The magnificent 300’ long hospital replaced a much smaller clinic attached to the mission’s rectory that had been destroyed by fire. (Photo courtesy of the Larry Lamb Collection). Additional photographs accompany the print version of this article.
Constructed of native stone by the skilled hands of local mountain craftsmen, “St. Anne’s Preventorium for rebuilding children,” at Mission Home, Greene Co., was built with the oversight of Rev. Roy Mason in 1931. The magnificent 300’ long hospital replaced a much smaller clinic attached to the mission’s rectory that had been destroyed by fire. (Photo courtesy of the Larry Lamb Collection). Additional photographs accompany the print version of this article.

During the early decades of the 20th century, one man with the firmest of convictions stood in direct opposition to the makers of illicit alcohol and the evils imposed on individuals and families by its manufacture. His was no simple feat.

Wiley Roy Mason was born in King George County, Virginia, not far from the Potomac River in the region referred to as the Northern Neck. As a young man, his heart turned toward a life of service to others. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1904, and subsequently enrolled in Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexandria.

Around the time of his graduation from VTS in 1907, he was approached by Archdeacon of the Blue Ridge Rev. Frederick Neve and Rev. George Mayo. Mayo’s missionary work in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Albemarle and Greene Counties had yielded much fruit and more laborers were needed in that field. Roy Mason, 28 years of age by this time, agreed to join in their work and arrived at Mission Home on the border of Albemarle and Greene in August.

George Mayo was anxious to pursue his vision of an industrial school built in the mountains to board local youths and teach them practical farming and mechanical skills. By 1909, Rev. W. Roy Mason had become “Priest in charge” of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mission District #2 with its headquarters at Mission Home. His field encompassed churches and parochial schools at Mission Home, Frazier’s [Lost] Mountain, Simmon’s Gap, Bacon Hollow and Blackwell’s Hollow. That year he built a two-story rectory at Mission Home, even as Rev. Mayo was opening Blue Ridge Industrial School at St. George in Bacon Hollow (today’s private Blue Ridge School at Dyke).

The church’s work in the mountains was meeting many needs and growing as a result, but its labors were anything but easy. Among the difficulties encountered in their outreach to many of their families were the multilayered problems associated with the local alcohol trade. Drunkenness and the resultant brawling endangered and further impoverished the families of those involved, as well as put the mission workers who served them at some personal risk.

Mason wrote: “The love of brandy is so deep and the moral standard is so low, that even the women keep and sell it, defying the law to convict them; for witnesses can scarcely be found, to tell the truth in court.” Archdeacon Neve wrote, “Mr. Mason soon realized that if these conditions were to be changed and the law abiding and respectable were to be protected… he would have to do some fighting.”

And so Roy Mason did, announcing in May 1911 that he planned to “declare war on the whiskey trade in the mountains.” Within months, multiple threats were made upon his life. During one surprise close encounter, an armed assailant raised his gun and pulled the trigger, but the weapon did not fire, no doubt imbuing Mason with a personal example of divine intervention.

Neither were others associated with the mission work immune from threats of violence. In October of the following year the Daily Progress, beneath a bold headline stating “MISSIONARY’S LIFE IS THREATENED,” reported the following: “Conflicts with illicit whiskey makers, attempts to repress the rowdy and a determination to remain with the mission had brought upon Rev. Mr. Mason and his assistants the bitterest enmity of the lawlessness in the mountains. Threats and attempts upon the life of the workers were of common occurrence… [and] the best people of that community live in daily expectation of outbreak and possible tragedy at the hands of the moonshiners. At one of the magistrate court trials one of the mountaineers pointed his gun at Rev. Mr. Mason’s head and snapped it twice. The cartridge failed to explode.”

In 1913, Mason started up a vinegar operation. He noted, “We are paying the same price for apples that the distilleries offer. In this way the people can feel that they are getting honest money and can no longer complain that we are taking bread out of their children’s mouths when we close a distillery.”

Our Mountain Work, a newsletter of the Diocese of Virginia, carried the following headline “A GREAT VICTORY” on its front page in May 1914: “One of the most important events connected with our work in the mountains for a long time has been the great victory won by the Rev. Roy Mason of Mission Home, Virginia… He started out almost alone, as those who sympathized with him were afraid to express their sentiments… So he himself has had to bear the brunt of the fight alone, well knowing that at any time his life might have to be sacrificed for the cause…

“As time went on, however, his friends gained courage and gradually the sentiment in favor of the distilleries changed. Men who had been his opponents came to see that he was right and that he was simply trying to remove something which had been a curse to them and to the community… The war has come to an end, through the complete triumph of this valiant champion of law and order and on May 1st, 1914, every licensed distillery in Albemarle and Greene Counties was closed…”

Though he passed on to his eternal reward on Christmas Day 1967, Roy Mason remains beloved by those who knew him. As was the case with Archdeacon Neve, his memory was also perpetuated through the bestowing of his name on several newborn babies. He served a total of 27 years in the Blue Ridge, 16 as Archdeacon with oversight of the entire theater of work in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Other deserving honors were his as well, including his election as the first Suffragen Bishop of Virginia in 1942.

With the establishment of Shenandoah National Park in 1936 came the elimination of some missionary outposts as well as the closing of others due to the removal/relocation of many of their parishioners. As roads and modes of transportation improved, local governments began to assume their long-neglected responsibility to educate all of the children in their jurisdictions, including those in remote areas. Thus ended one of the primary endeavors of those compassionate laborers in the Blue Ridge Mountain Mission Work.

Follow Secrets of the Blue Ridge on Facebook! Phil James invites contact from those who would share recollections and old photographs of life along the Blue Ridge Mountains of Albemarle County. You may respond to him through his website: www.SecretsoftheBlueRidge.com or at P.O. Box 88, White Hall, VA 22987. Secrets of the Blue Ridge © 2003–2016 Phil James

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