Mason, Francis
MASON, FRANCIS (1799-1874), American missionary, wa born in York, England, on the 2nd of April 1799. His grandfather, Francis Mason, was the founder of the Baptist Societj in York, and his father, a shoemaker by trade, was a Baptis lay preacher there. After working with his father as a shoemake for several years, he emigrated in 1818 to the United States, and in Massachusetts was licensed to preach as a Baptist in 1827. In 1830 he was sent by the American Baptist Missionar Convention to labour among the Karens in Burma. Beside conducting a training college for native preachers and teacher at Tavoy, he translated the Bible into the two principal dialec of the Karens, the Sgaw and the Pwo (his translation being pub lished in 1853), and Matthew, Genesis, and the Psalms into th Bghai dialect. He also published A Pali Grammar on the Basis i Kachchayano, with Chrestomathy and Vocabulary (1868). 1852 he published a book of great value on the fauna and flor of British Burma, of which an improved edition appeared 1860 under the title Burmah, its People and Natural Production and a third edition (2 vols.) revised and enlarged by W. Theobald in 1882-1883. He died at Rangoon on the 3rd of March 1874.
See his autobiography, The Story cf a Working Man's Life, will Sketches of Travel in Europe, Asia, Africa and America (New York 1870).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
