Dr. Holmes says: "If we wish to educate a boy properly, we must begin with his grandfather." Barachias Mason was a graduate of Harvard University in 1742, but one hundred and fifty years ago. He was a schoolmaster, a teacher of singing-schools, and a selectman of the town for several years. This certainly is a fair start, on Dr. Holmes's principle. His son, Colonel Johnson Mason, Lowell's father, lived with him, and inherited the homestead, where he kept a public school for many years. He was a merchant. In this pursuit, it seems, young Lowell assisted him in his boyhood, as we learn that, on the occasion of his narrow escape from drowning in 1806, he was out with a team on business for his father, near what is now poor-farm bridge, where he was rescued from a watery grave by two boys about his own age after having sunk for the third time. Colonel Mason manufactured straw goods to some extent. He was also an ingenious mechanic, inventing some useful machines used in the straw business of those days. He was town clerk for nineteen years, town treasurer, and a member of the legislature; he was a musician, a player on musical instruments, particularly the violoncello, and, together with his wife, sang in the parish choir for more than twenty years. When the musical talent of the town united, on a Fourth-of-July occasion in 1840, to supply the music, Colonel Mason stood at the head of the basses, although then over seventy years of age. He was also a prominent military man, commissioned captain in 1800, and lieutenant-colonel in 1803. It will thus be seen that he was one of the most intelligent and influential men in the town.