Thomas Carter

Thomas Carter (April 24, 1731 – October 5, 1803) was a planter, military officer and politician in southwestern Virginia.

Early and family life Born in northeastern Virginia (either in Lancaster or Fauquier County), to the former Judith Norris and her planter husband, Peter Carter. He was likely named to honor his grandfather, Thomas Carter of Barford plantation, who had married the daughter of burgess Edward Dale. When Thomas was two years old, his father inherited half of a 304-acre plantation in King George County, Virginia. Thomas received a limited private education appropriate to his class. He farmed using enslaved labor. Although the 1787 census indicated Carter was a nonresident with a single slave, as well as 11 horses and 41 cattle, by the time of his death, Carter owned more than a dozen slaves. When the Virginia legislature split the county in late 1785, Carter's acreage was in the new Russell County, named for General William Russell, who had introduced the bill to form the county and was the son-in-law of Patrick Henry. Carter became a justice of the first Russell County Court (held on May 9, 1786) as well as lieutenant of the county militia. His farm in Rye Cove, initially the furthest west in the Clinch Valley, became a militia garrison sometimes known as "Carter's fort" as late as 1792. Also his cousin John Carter, despite settling four miles from Fort Blackmore, lost his wife and six children to raiding native Americans in 1787. Less than a year later, on April 20, 1788, native Americans captured Thomas Carter's youngest son, Morgan, his cousin Elijah Carter and a Black slave, who were returned in 1793 with the assistance of Governor Simcoe of South Carolina. Carter resigned as the Russell county lieutenant (the highest county executive office, leading and responsible for supplying the county militia) in 1794, citing increasing infirmity. However, fellow justices of the county court kept proposing him for the office of sheriff many times, before a Thomas Carter (likely his nephew) finally accepted the commission in 1803, the year of this man's death. Meanwhile, this Thomas Carter regularly wrote Virginia's governors concerning attacks on the frontier, and recommended deployments and responses.