The fame which Mr. Mason had acquired while in College for bodily strength and skill in wrestling, did not desert him after he left.  While settled as a minister at Northfield, a party of young men from Vermont challenged the young men of that town to a bout at wrestling.  The challenge was accepted, and on a given day the two parties assembled at Northfield.  After several rounds, when it began to appear that the Vermonters were gaining the advantage, a proposal was made, by some who had heard of Mr. Mason’s exploits, that he should be requested to take part in the contest.  It had now grown late, and the minister, who usually retired early, had already betaken himself to bed.  Being informed of the request of the wrestlers, for a long time he refused to go, alleging as reasons his ministerial capacity, the force of example, &c.  Finding these excuses of no avail, he finally arose, dressed himself, and repaired to the scene of action.  Shouts greeted him on his arrival, and he found himself on the wrestling-field, as he had stood years ago at Cambridge.  The champion of the Vermonters came forward, flushed with his former victories.  After playing around him for some time, Mr. Mason finally threw him.  Having by this time collected his ideas of the game, when another antagonist appeared, tripping up his heels with perfect ease, he suddenly twitched him off his centre and laid him on his back.  Victory was declared in favor of Northfield, and the good minister was borne home in triumph.

Similar to these statements are those of Professor Sidney Willard relative to the same subject, contained in his late work entitled “Memories of Youth and Manhood.”  Speaking of the observances in vogue at Harvard College in the year 1794, he says:—­“Next to being indoctrinated in the Customs, so called, by the Sophomore Class, there followed the usual annual exhibition of the athletic contest between that class and the Freshman Class, namely, the wrestling-match.  On some day of the second week in the term, after evening prayers, the two classes assembled on the play-ground and formed an extended circle, from which a stripling of the Sophomore Class advanced into the area, and, in terms justifying the vulgar use of the derivative word Sophomorical, defied his competitors, in the name of his associates, to enter the lists.  He was matched by an equal in stature, from that part of the circle formed by the new-comers.  Beginning with these puny athletes, as one and another was prostrated on either side, the contest advanced through the intermediate gradations of strength and skill, with increasing excitement of the parties and spectators, until it reached its summit by the struggle of the champion or coryphaeus in reserve on each of the opposite sides.  I cannot now affirm with certainty the result of the contest; whether it was a drawn battle, whether it ended with the day, or was postponed for another trial.  It probably ended in the defeat of the younger party,