Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1885, named for John Latin Mason of New York, who patented it in 1858.
Wikipedia
A Mason jar, named after John Landis Mason who first invented and patented it in 1858, is a molded glass jar used in home canning to preserve food. The jar's mouth has a screw thread on its outer perimeter to accept a metal ring (or "band"). The band, when screwed down, presses a separate stamped steel disc-shaped lid against the jar's rim. An integral rubber ring on the underside of the lid creates a hermetic seal. The bands and lids usually come with new jars, but they are also sold separately. While the bands are reusable, the lids are intended for single use when canning. Largely supplanted by other products and methods for commercial canning, such as tin cans and plastic containers, glass jars and metal lids are still commonly used in home canning. Mason jars are also called Ball jars, in reference to the Ball Corporation, an early and prolific manufacturer of glass canning jars; fruit jars for a common content; and glass canning jars a generic term reflecting their material. Lightning fruit jars, another type of Mason jar, was not as common as the screw-thread version, but they were popular for home canning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Usage examples of "mason jar".
And last, my most fortuitous find: a butterfly net, made of bent cane and gauze, with a glass Mason jar, wad of cotton, and bottle of alcohol for the humane euthanizing of specimens.
In fact, she liked coons and skunks and snakes and muskrats better than she did most folks, although she didn't mind when once in a blue moon some city slicker from Maggody came to the cabin for a mason jar of hooch and a little romp.
The mason jar in which he kept the Berol Black Beauties had rolled all the way to the back, spilling pencils as it went.
Josh poured water into a pail for Mule and found a discarded Mason jar for Killer to drink water from.
He threw away the warm beer, pulled out an ice bucket, walked over and plunked two cubes in her glass then walked back over and pulled out a Mason jar.
Millie noticed that there was some applesauce that had been put up by someone last fall, the Mason jar had the hand written date on the top.
That afternoon had been a good run: I had collected enough to fill the pot, maybe fifty litres or so-then kept the fire roaring for hours, and eventually took a little more than three litres down the Mountain with me in a Mason jar.
That afternoon had been a good run: I had collected enough to fill the pot, maybe fifty liters or sothen kept the fire roaring for hours, and eventually took a little more than three liters down the Mountain with me in a Mason jar.
On the day they dropped the bomb Frank had a tablespoon and a Mason jar.