Richard Mason Hancock (November 22, 1832 – June 5, 1899) was a carpenter and shop foreman and civil rights activist in the American Northeast and Chicago. He was one of few African-American iron works shop foremen during his era.
Early life
Richard Mason Hancock was born on November 22, 1832, in New Bern, North Carolina. His parents were free blacks. Mason attended private schools, as public schools were barred to black children. When he was thirteen he was apprenticed as a carpenter under his father, William H. HancockSimmons, William J., and Henry McNeal Turner. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. GM Rewell & Company, 1887. p405-409 and under builder Uriah Sandy.Wilson, Dreck Spurlock, ed. African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865-1945. Routledge, 2004. p260-261 As an apprentice and in his early jobs he learned the crafts of pattern-making, carpentry, mathematics, and draughting.
Career As a young adult he moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where he was employed at Atwater & Treat and then Doolittle & Company, both white firms. In New Haven in 1856 he was involved in opposition to the American Colonization Society.The Colored People and the American Colonization Society, The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts) June 20, 1856, page 3, accessed October 6, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6918040// He then moved to Lockport, New York, where he worked in ship carpentry, on canal boats. He then took work under Birdsill Holly at Holly Manufacturing Company where he learned pattern-making.
In 1862 he came to Chicago and took work as a pattern-maker for abolitionist P. W. Gates, president of Eagle Works Manufacturing Company. He worked as journeyman for two years before being promoted to foreman of the shops. However, the white employees refused to work under Mason. After three days under these conditions, Mason went to Gates to resign. Instead, Gates hired new pattern-makers to fill the places of the strikers and Hancock continued his role as foreman. In 1873, at the beginning of the Long Depression, Eagle Works went out of business and two superintendents at the company, Thomas Chalmers and David Ross Fraser, formed a new company, Liberty Iron Works. Hancock moved with them, working as foreman. His son, George, also worked as a pattern-maker at Liberty Iron Works.
Family His first wife, Mary B. Beman, was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Amos Gerry Beman of New Haven CT. Richard and Mary lived in Lockport NY and had two children: Fanny and George.1860 US Census, New York, Niagara County, Lockport, Family Number 1439 Mary died in Lockport on July 9, 1861.[No Headline] The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts) July 19, 1861, page 3, accessed October 6, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6918065/no_headline_the_liberator_boston/
He married Jane Watkins in Chicago on 6 Jun 1867;Cook County, Illinois, U.S., Marriage and Death Indexes, 1833-1889 she died on 20 April 1879.Illinois Death Index pre 1916, Jane W. Hancock entry, #2095, online, accessed November 18, 2021.
On 26 April 1881 in Cincinnati, Ohio, he married Gertrude E. Gross (née Taylor),Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 widow of the Rev. Tabbs Gross, an enslaved man who had purchased his freedom then become a lawyer and newspaper publisher.Tabbs Gross (1820–1880), Encyclopedia of Arkansas, accessed November 18, 2021 at https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/tabbs-gross-4747/ Richard adopted Gertrude's daughter Constance Gross.Year: 1900; Census Place: Chicago Ward 4, Cook, Illinois; Page: 4; Enumeration District: 0085; FHL microfilm: 1240247 In June 1900, "Mrs. R. M. Hancock, widow of Richard M. Hancock" is mentioned as the "president of the Workers for the King circle of the King's Daughters, the oldest society among colored people of this order in the world".The Windy City, The Colored American (Washington, DC) June 23, 1900, page 9, accessed October 6, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6918139/the_windy_city_the_colored_american/
Public life Mason's work gave him considerable respect and wealth. He was an active republicanLocal Politics, The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois) October 15, 1874, page 8, accessed October 6, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6918121/local_politics_the_inter_ocean/ and vice-president of the Provident Hospital and Training School for African-Americans in ChicagoIn Lightest Africa, Chicago Daily Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) July 31, 1892, page 33, accessed October 6, 2016 at https://web.archive.org/web/20161009123804/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6918104/in_lightest_africa_chicago_daily/ Mason was a freemason and a member of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church.
Death He died June 5, 1899, in Chicago of stomach cancer, and his funeral was at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church.Obituary, The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois) June 6, 1899, page 3, accessed October 6, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6918004/obituary_the_inter_ocean_chicago/ He is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.Cook County, Illinois, U.S., Deaths Index, 1878-1922, FHL Film Number 1033062
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