He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William Branch Giles and served from January 3, 1816 to March 3, 1817. He then moved to Loudoun County, Virginia and was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1816 to the Fifteenth Congress in a campaign of much bitterness, which gave rise to several duels, and later resulted in his being killed in a duel with his brother-in-law, John Mason McCarty, at Bladensburg, Maryland, near Washington, DC. He is buried in the churchyard of the Episcopal Church at Leesburg, Virginia.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000213)
Mason was born at Chappawamsic in Stafford County, Virginia and attended William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia.
In 1794, Mason was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Monroe.
Mason's father, Thomson Mason (1730-1785), was chief justice of the Virginia supreme court and brother of George Mason (1725-1792), who took part of the Constitutional Convention.