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 Robert Jones, August 28, 1727

     Robert Carter writes to his friend and manager Robert Jones, August 28, 1727, requesting that Jones view some lands George Mason has offered to sell Carter, and give him an opinion of their quality as they are adjacent to Carter's Falls Quarter.



Letter from Robert Carter to Robert Jones, August 28, 1727


-1 -

[Corotoman, Lancaster County, Virginia]

Augst. the 28th: 1727

Mr. Robert Jones --

     Mr. Mercer hath Several times proposed to me
the Selling Some Lands he hath in right of his wife and that at
present belonging to Colonel Mason and her but as yet undivided
Colonel Mason agrees that he Shall have his Choice after Division
and that these Lands lie bordering upon my Land where
you live I would have you inform your self from all the Neighbors
that can give you intelligence of the Quality of this Land
I would also have you take a Particular view of it if Mr. Mercer
comes to Show you where it lies and pray if you do go upon
it be very Particular in your Observations and give me your
own thoughts of it how much good Land you See and how Servic
able it may be to me for the use of the Falls plantation Mercer tells me
Captain Strother was the first Encouraged him to make the Offer to me
and Perhaps he will go out with you and may be acquainted with
the Land already but let not the thoughts of others Sway you but give
me your own Opinion as to the Quality of it upon your view If
what Mercer Says of the Offer Mr. England has made him be true
I Expect you will hear nothing from him about he it he Says England
Offer'd him £20 a hundred nay £25 if the Company he is Concerned in
would agree to it but in my thoughts if there be so large a Quantity
of Land in it that is good as Mercer tells me £15 per hundred to take the
whole together will be full the worth of it which [is] the needful at present from


Your Friend

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.

This letter was published in Berkeley. "Robert Carter as Agricultural Administrator: . . .", 278-279.

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

[1] John Mercer (1704-1768) emigrated from Ireland where he had beentrained as an attorney. "He settled at Marlboroughtown in 1726 as a practicing attorney and at once allowed a facile pen to get him into trouble with the government." He eventually lost his license to practice law, and turned to the land speculation that he had begun as soon as he reached Virginia. (Harrison. Landmarks of Old Prince William p. 315. and Copeland and MacMaster. The Five George Masons. )

[2] George Mason III (c. 1690-1735), justice, sheriff, burgess, andcounty lieutenant of Stafford County, father of the constitutional theorist. (Copeland and MacMaster, The Five George Masons. pp. 50-86 ; and George Harrison Sanford King, The Register of Overwharton Parish Stafford County Virginia 1723-1758 And Sundry Historical and Genealogical Notes . [Fredericksburg, VA: privately printed, 1961.] )

[3] This may be John England who directed "the Accakeek Iron Worksin Stafford County for Augustine Washington and others beginning about 1726." ( George Harrison Sanford King. The Register of Overwharton Parish Stafford County Virginia 1723-1758 And Sundry Historical and Genealogical Notes. [Fredericksburg, VA: privately printed, 1961], p.132. )