Braxton, Carter, 1736-1797

Carter Braxton was born of a wealthy family in Newington Plantation Virginia. He lost nearly all of his wealth in the course of the revolution, partly through his support of the Union, and partly through attack by the British forces. He was educated at William and Mary College. He married at age 19, but his wife died about two years after. He then went to England for a little more than two years. In 1760 he returned, married again, and was appointed to represent King William county in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was in attendance 1765, when Patrick Henry's Stamp Act resolutions agitated the Assembly. In 1769 he joined the "radical" faction of the Burgesses in support of Virginia's sole right to tax inhabitants. When the house was dissolved in 1774 he joined the patriot's Committee of Safety in Virginia, and represented his county in the Virginia Convention. In 1775, upon the sudden death of Peyton Randolph, Braxton was selected to assume his place in the Continental Congress. He attended two years, after which he returned to Virginia to continue service to the House of Burgesses. During the War, he had loaned £10,000 sterling to support the revolutionary cause. He had also used his wealth to sponsor shipping and privateering during the conflict, the losses from which eventually resulted in debt. He never recovered, and, in 1786, was forced to leave his inherited country estate for simple quarters in Richmond. He died at age 61.

<p>Carter Braxton (September 10, 1736 – October 10, 1797) was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, a merchant, planter, a Founding Father of the United States and a Virginia politician. A grandson of Robert "King" Carter, one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners and slaveholders in the Old Dominion, Braxton was active in Virginia's legislature for more than 25 years, generally allied with Landon Carter, Benjamin Harrison V, Edmund Pendleton and other conservative planters.</p>

<p>Braxton was born on Newington Plantation in King and Queen County, Virginia, on September 10, 1736, but wrongly reported as dead along with his mother, Mary Carter Braxton, who "unhappily catching a Common Cold," died shortly after his birth.</p>

<p>His maternal grandfather, King Carter, possibly the wealthiest man as well as the largest landowner in Virginia at the time of his death, had bequeathed £2,000 to his youngest daughter, who became bethrothed to George Braxton Jr. five months after her father's death (although her brother had not paid that full amount to her new husband by the time of her death). His paternal grandfather, George Braxton, Sr. by 1704 (before western lands were opened to European settlement) had also become one of the 100 largest landowners in Virginia's Northern Neck. George Braxton Sr. had been elected for the first time to the House of Burgesses in 1718 and was re-elected nine years later with John Robinson, Jr., who would become the powerful Speaker of the House of Burgesses and benefactor of the Braxton family. The elder Braxton owned at least one ship, the Braxton that traded with the West Indies and elsewhere, and was commission agent for cargoes of enslaved blacks sold to Virginia planters. He died, aged 71, when Carter was twelve; his eldest son (Carter's father) George Jr. had succeeded him as delegate for King and Queen County in 1742 but died not long thereafter in 1749. Speaker Robinson and neighbor Humphrey Hill served as guardians for Carter and his slightly (3 year) elder brother George (who inherited Newington and various land in King and Queen and Essex County).</p>

<ul><b>RACES</b>
<li>03/20/1797 VA District 16 Lost 29.31% (-41.38%)</li>
<li>01/07/1789 VA Presidential Elector Lost 1.93% (-68.12%)</li>
<li>12/31/1775 VA Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>