Mason was a London merchant who had seen service as governor of Newfoundland, and was, like Gorges, "a man of action." His experience made him interested in America, and his interest in America caused him to be elected a member of the Council for New England, and ultimately its vice-president.[2] The two leaders persuaded various merchants in. England to join them in their colonial projects; and in the spring of 1623 they set up two settlements within the limits of the present state of New Hampshire, and some small stations at Saco Bay, Casco Bay, and Monhegan Island, in the present state of Maine. Of the settlements in New Hampshire, one called Piscataqua, at the mouth of the river of that name, was formed by three Plymouth merchants, Colmer, Sherwell, and Pomeroy, who chose a Scotchman named David Thompson as their manager. They obtained a grant, October 16, 1622, for an island, and six thousand acres on the main, near the mouth of Piscataqua; and here Thompson located in the spring of 1623. He remained about three years, and in 1626 removed thence to an island in Boston harbor, where he lived as an independent settler.[3] The other plantation, called Cocheco, was established by two brothers, Edward and William Hilton, fish-mongers of London, and some Bristol merchants, and was situated on the south side of the Piscataqua about eight miles from the mouth of the river.[4] November 7, 1629, Captain Mason obtained a patent[5] from the Council for New England for a tract extending sixty miles inland and lying between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, being a part of the territory granted to Gorges and himself in 1622. He called it New Hampshire in honor of Hampshire, in England, where he had an estate. Seven days later the same grantors gave to a company of whom Mason and Gorges were the most prominent merchants, a patent for the province of Laconia, describing it as "bordering on the great lake or lakes or rivers called Iroquois, a nation of savage people inhabiting into the landward between the rivers Merrimac and Sagadahoc, lying near about forty-four or forty-five degrees." And in 1631 Gorges, Mason, and others obtained another grant for twenty thousand acres, which included the settlement at the mouth of the Piscataqua.