Edward Carter

Edward Hill Carter (1733–1793) (nicknamed "Ned") was a Virginia planter, military officer and politician, who served terms in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Virginia House of Delegates, representing Albemarle County. He was a neighbor and correspondent of Thomas Jefferson, and spent winters in Fredericksburg, which his wife preferred. Col. Edward Carter fought in what became known as the French and Indian War, and afterward operated several plantations in Albemarle as well as neighboring Amherst and Nelson Counties using enslaved labor. He was one of the wealthiest men in all three counties following the American Revolutionary War. Early and family life The youngest son of the former Elizabeth Hill and her husband John Carter was born at the Hill family's historic Shirley Plantation in Charles City County, which his parents received as a wedding present. His eldest brother, John Hill Carter, was alive in 1728 when their middle (and ultimately wealthiest) brother Charles Hill Carter was born and their enormously wealthy grandfather Robert Carter I died, and may have still been alive in 1777, but has left little historical footprint. Both Charles and Edward were underage when their father died in 1742, so they became wards of their uncle Landon Carter, who raised them with his children at Sabine Hall. Complicating matters, his brother Charles Hill Carter would name one of his twin sons Edward, and that son also served in the Virginia House of Delegates, but represented Prince William County, Virginia, where his estate was known as "Cloverdale". After Landon Carter's death, Charles and Edward became wards of Richard Byrd III, the husband of their aunt Elizabeth and whose plantation Berkeley plantation was much nearer Shirley plantation, which young Charles Hill Carter inherited upon reaching legal age. When Edward Carter reached legal age and came into his own inheritance, he married his distant cousin Sarah Champe (1733–1814), daughter of Burgess, John Champe and his wife Jane of King George County, Virginia. Sarah Carter survived her husband despite bearing thirteen children, of whom eleven reached adulthood and had children. Sarah Champe definitely preferred living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the nearest town to where she had been raised, rather than still-rural Albemarle County, even if it was nearer her husband's vast inherited acreage. Thus, for years they wintered in Fredericksburg, and spent summers in Albemarle County.