John Mason (October 1600 – January 30, 1672) was an English-born settler, soldier, commander, colonizer and Deputy Governor of the Connecticut Colony. Mason was best known for leading a group of Puritan settlers and Indian allies on a combined attack on a Pequot Fort in an event known as the Mystic Massacre. The destruction and loss of life he oversaw effectively ended the hegemony of the Pequot tribe in southeast Connecticut. Early life and education Mason was born in Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire, England. John Mason's baptism is recorded in the St. Deny's church records on October 5, 1600 and lists his father as Richard Mason, who was married on May 23, 1600 in Ravensthorpe to Alis Burlyn - Burlyn is probably an error for Butlyn because Alis Butlyn was baptized in Ravensthorpe on September 9. 1576. Alis could be the phonetic version of Alice. Little is known about his youth and life there. Mason was well educated, but it is not known where he was schooled in England or perhaps a military school in the Netherlands. He enlisted in the military in 1624 and then went to the Netherlands to serve in the sectarian Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), where he gained significant tactical military experience, first seeing action in the Breda Campaign. His activities from the earliest days in New England give evidence of training as a military engineer. His prose is vigorous and direct in his regular correspondence with the Winthrop Family and in his history of the Pequot War. By 1629 he was a lieutenant in the Brabant Campaign and participated in the Siege of s'-Hertogenbosch, literally "The Duke's Forrest" in English, and known historically in French as Bois-le-Duc. He served with Lord Thomas Fairfax under General Sir Horace Vere in the army of Frederik Hendrik, The Prince of Orange. Early life in America In 1632, he joined the great Puritan exodus and sailed from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, settling in Dorchester where he was promptly appointed as the captain of the local militia. In 1633, he commanded the first American naval task force and pursued the pirate Dixie Bull, routing him from New England waters. He and Roger Ludlow planned and supervised the construction of the first fortifications on Castle Island (later known as Fort Independence) in Boston Harbor. In 1634, he was elected to represent Dorchester in the Massachusetts General Court, where permission was granted