Mason 1840
Jepson Family Line
From Lancashire, England and New England to West Dundee, Kane County, Illinois
John Thomas Mason (1816–1876) and Wealthy Diantha (Kelsey) Mason (1826–1866)
Ancestor biographies: John Thomas Mason · Wealthy Diantha Kelsey Mason
John Thomas Mason was born in 1816 in Savoy, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, a hill town settled only a generation earlier. Though New England–born, his family’s deeper origins lay in Lancashire, England, where Mason ancestors lived before migrating to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century.
In 1840, limited land and opportunity in western Massachusetts prompted John and his brother to join the steady movement of New Englanders heading to Illinois. They settled in the Fox River valley in Kane County, where John secured federal land near what became West Dundee. In 1845 he married Wealthy Diantha Kelsey, herself descended from a long-established New England family.
Together, John and Wealthy Diantha transformed prairie acreage into a productive dairy farm. Their move to Illinois continued a generational pattern—England to New England, uplands to prairie—each migration shaped by opportunity, risk, and the hope of building a more secure future.
