Attorney General: John Y. Mason
John Young Mason was born in Greensville County, Virginia, on April 18, 1799. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1816 and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1819. Mason served in the Virginia state legislature from 1823 to 1831. From 1831 to 1837, he served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he became chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Mason resigned his seat in Congress in 1837 to accept a judgeship on the General Court of Virginia, and in 1841, he was elevated by President Martin Van Buren to the federal bench. In 1844, President John Tyler appointed him Secretary of the Navy.
Mason was appointed Attorney General of the United States on March 6, 1845, by President James K. Polk, and held that office until September 9, 1846. He was reappointed Secretary of the Navy by President Polk and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to France in October 1853 by President Franklin Pierce. Mason died in Paris, France, on October 3, 1859.
Eliphalet Frazier Andrews was born in Steubenville, Ohio. He studied painting under Léon Bonnat in Paris and with Ludwig Knaus and Heinrich Mücke in Düsseldorf. He settled in Washington, D.C., in 1876. Andrews eventually became director of the Corcoran School of Art and held the position for many years. His portrait of Attorney General Mason was copied from one by Thomas Sully. Several of his paintings hang in the White House, including portraits of Martha Washington, Dolly Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. Andrews died in 1915.