Robert King Carter's Correspondence and Diary

   A Collection Transcribed
        and Digitized
   by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.


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Electronic Text Center , University of Virginia Library


Summary



Letter from Robert Carter to William Camp, July 15, 1727

     Robert Carter writes to William Camp, the manager of the Burwell estates in Gloucester County, July 15, 1727, concerning his settlement of accounts with his son-in-law, George Nicholas, over those estates, and work to be done at Rippon Hall in York County.



Letter from Robert Carter to William Camp, July 15, 1727


-1 -

[Corotoman, Lancaster County, Virginia]

July the 15th: 1727

Wm. Camp --

     The foregoing is the Letter Mr. Nicholas lost I have
Seen the Accots: Delivered to him there is one Accot: more you must get
ready which is how the Levys have been paid with these Accots and your
Assistance if the Doctor and I can find a time to meet at Colonel Pages
we Shall bring all these little matters to a Settlement and so will
leave them at present,

     You tell me you had a meeting with Hazlewood &
that he will meet me at Town when I come there I am generally so
busy when I am there that it will be no proper place to make an
Agreement with him at Indeed the properest plase would be to see him
at Rippon but how to Contrive that I dont know as for his doing the
work by Squares it is a way I am not acquainted with I would make
a particular agreement with him what he is to do and know the Certainty
of what I must pay him for it. It is a large Job and will be worth
his while to undertake it at a reasonable rate. I was telling you of
another Carpenter that lives near the Town whose name is out of my
head I think you told me you knew him that I had a very good


-2 -


Character of from Mr. Robertson and would be very glad of Such
a piece of work The next time you go to Rippon if you could get him a
long with you and know his Opinion of the work and what he will
take to do it would be very well I hope you will take care, that the
Tobacco house at rippon be very well built I shall add no more at present


NOTES



Source copy consulted: Robert Carter letter book, 1727 May-1728 July, Robert Carter Papers (acc. no. 3807), Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

The name of Carter's home, the county, and colony have been added for clarity to this unheaded draft.

[1] William Camp was described by Carter as "the General Overseer of Mr Burwell's Affairs" and he wrote that Camp earned a salary "£50 . . . for the year 1731." Carter and his son-in-law, Mann Page, were the trustees of Nathaniel Burwell's children after Burwell's death in 1721. Camp was a resident of Gloucester County where most of the Burwell estates lay, and he must also have supervised "Rippon Hall" in nearby York County. (Carter to George Braxton, 1729 November 20, and Carter to William Dawkins,1732 July 11. Virginia Tax Records. [Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1983.] p. 539. )

[2] Williamsburg

[3] Rippon Hall had been Edmund Jening's estate in York County which he had acquired in 1687 from John and Unity West when it was named "Poplar Neck." Jenings's bad financial circumstances forced him to mortgage the property to Carter who eventually acquired title to it. ( "Notes and Queries." William and Mary Quarterly. 2[Apr. 1894]: 270-278. )

[4] The carpenter Hazelwood apparently wished to charge for his work by the square which is a builder's term for the number of shingles or slates required to roof 100 square feet, or a square area of roof ten feet on a side.


This text, originally posted in 2003, was revised April 12, 2013, to strengthen the footnotes and modern language version text.