Archives West Finding Aid

Alanson T. Mason (1822-1905), a lumberman from Michigan, and his wife Nancy Hollenbeck Mason (1824-1900) arrived in Kittitas County, Washington, in May of 1877 and settled in what is now Thorp. A. T. Mason was born in Cayuga County, New York in 1822 and spent his childhood in Jamestown, New York. He began his life as lumberman at the age of twenty-one. He would later reside in Forest County, Pennsylvania before moving to northwest Michigan in the fall of 1862. While in Michigan he began a lumbering business in the thick woods between Reed City and Big Rapids. He remained in the lumbering business in Michigan until 1876 when he and his wife relocated to Plainsburg, California. The following year he moved to western Kittitas County, now Thorp, where he began operating a ranch and saw mill. At age 71 he retired and sold the family ranch in 1893. He and his wife purchased a home in Ellensburg the same year. He died at the Ellensburg home of his son-in-law, Humbolt Packwood, in 1905.

Nancy Hollenbeck Mason was born in Madison County, New York in 1825 to Daniel and Phoebe (Lonsdale) Hollenbeck. Alanson and Nancy were married in Jamestown, New York in 1843. The couple had been married for fifty-three years and had six children of which only three survived to adulthood. Nancy died in December of 1900.

Martin Mason, the eldest surviving child, was born in 1848 in Jamestown, New York. Most of Martin’s childhood was spent in Jamestown and in Michigan on the family farm and lumber mill. He married Anna Silsby in 1869 and purchased his own farm, near his father’s, not long afterwards. Martin and Anna moved to Kittitas County, Washington in 1886, where he purchased a one hundred sixty acre cattle ranch two miles west of Ellensburg. Anna died unexpectedly in 1889. Martin was remarried a year later to Mary Harrison, a widow from Ellensburg who was born in New York in 1848. Martin and his second wife moved to West Seattle, Washington sometime during the late 1890s.

Luna Janette Mason, the only surviving daughter of Alanson and Nancy, was born in 1862 in Jamestown, New York. She arrived in Kittitas County with her parents in 1877 at the age of 15. In December of 1878, she married W. Humbolt Packwood. She and her husband moved to Ellensburg, Washington soon after the town was established. Humbolt died in March of 1907. Luna never remarried. She worked as a nurse and seamstress in Ellensburg until her retirement. She died on November 24, 1958 at age 94.