March - Williamsburg , VA Magazine , Next Door Neighbors

N e x t D o o r N e i g h b o r sBusinessLisa W. Cumming PhotographyHatley MasonSetting Sail in a Turbulent RecessionBy Greg Lilly, EditorHatley Mason spent his childhood summersin Gloucester, Virginia and the surroundingrivers. “My family and I would come toWilliamsburg all the time during the summerbecause I had a great-aunt who lived here.”His grandmother, Frances Norton Mason,wrote the book John Norton & Sons, Merchantsof London and Virginia, and it was a source forthe restoration of Williamsburg in the 1920sand ‘30s.“It’s a transcription of letters and actualshipping invoices from the company from1750 to 1795,” Hatley says. The items shippedto Virginia to stock the shelves and furnish thehomes of the colonists are listed in the records30 NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORSMARCH2011of the family’s company.Today, Hatley continues the family traditionof merchants in Williamsburg. He is theowner of Mermaid Books, bravely taking overthe store in the midst of the recession.“John Hatley Norton,” Hatley says, “operatedin Yorktown, and he had a store on Duke ofGloucester Street, at Market Square, near theCourthouse. It’s now called the Roscoe ColeHouse. Up until the mid 1970s, it was calledthe Norton-Cole House.”When Hatley was a child roaming the streetsof Williamsburg, the thrill of seeing his ancestor’sbuilding could only be eclipsed by watchingthe craftsmen making their wares. “Theysold them right there in the shops where theymade them,” he says. “When I first bought thisstore, I was very in tune to that need of visitorsto take home something special found only inWilliamsburg.”Hatley started his professional career atthe Richmond News Leader. “I had this reallywonderful mentor Jeff MacNelly, a politicalcartoonist,” Hatley explains. “I wanted to bea political cartoonist too, so I worked at thenewspaper until 1979 when I was asked by theWashington Post to create a comic strip calledDupont Circle – a political satire strip alongthe lines of Doonesbury.” He worked for severalyears for the Post creating illustrations and