Theodorus B. M. Mason
US Navy officer (1848–1899)
Theodorus Bailey Myers Mason (May 8, 1848 – October 15, 1899) was the founder and first head of the United States Office of Naval Intelligence, with the post of Chief Intelligence Officer (prior to it being redesignated as Director of Naval Intelligence in 1911).
Biography
Mason came from a distinguished New York family. He was the son of Theodorus Bailey Myers, who was a lawyer and served as a colonel in the United States Army during the Civil War; his uncle, Rear Adm. Theodorus Bailey, served under Admiral David Farragut in New Orleans. He adopted the last name Mason in deference to his maternal grandfather Sidney Mason, who had no male heirs to carry on the family name.
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in 1868, Mason was a distinguished linguist with an inquisitive mind, qualities that gave him respect and recognition in the Navy. After a stint in the Hydrographic Office, he travelled extensively in Europe and South America as a naval observer collecting ideas on naval intelligence systems; he knew what information was available and how to obtain it. He recognized that in order for the Navy to compete with its European counterparts, research in naval science and technology should be encouraged; as part of this objective, a unified intelligence agency was needed to gather information on foreign developments for proper dissemination and coordination with the different Bureaus. He made these recommendations upon the request of Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt.
Hunt read and agreed with most of Lt.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7782163. VIAF identifies the subject as 5017220. The Library of Congress control number is n99272487. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 2 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1848, 1899, 1911 and 1868.
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This entry incorporates text from “Theodorus B. M. Mason” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.