Robert King Carter's Correspondence and Diary

   A Collection Transcribed
        and Digitized
   by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.


List of Letters | About This Collection

Electronic Text Center , University of Virginia Library


Summary



Letter from Robert Carter to Colonel Thomas Lee, February 24, 1729

     Robert Carter writes to Colonel Thomas Lee of Westmoreland County, February 24, 1729, concerning militia commissions, and to sympathize with him over the loss of his house.



Letter from Robert Carter to Colonel Thomas Lee, February 24, 1729


-1 -

[Corotoman, Lancaster County, Virginia]     Febry: 24. 1728/9
Colo: Thos: Lee

     Herewith I send you all the commissions I
have for the Militia of your County when I came to Overhall
them find the Govrs: Secretary has omitted putting up the comm:
for the Two Companys of Foot of which the Capts: are dead
I shall send for [them at] the first Opportunity I have and quickly
                                                            trans [mit]


-2 -


them to you

     It is of the Latest to condole with you upon your d [i] sm [al]
Calamity my own Suffering in the like nature I do Assur y [ou]
makes me Sympathise the more deeply with yours Altho everyon [e]
that wears the Compassion of a Christian cannot but entertain the
Story with a high regret I am




NOTES



Source copy consulted: Letter book, 1728 August-1731 July, Robert Carter Papers (acc. no. 3807), Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

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

[1] Thomas Lee (1690-1750) of Westmoreland County was the son of Richard Lee II, and nephew of Edmund Jenings; he would build "Stratford," and succeed Carter on the Council. For a good article on Thomas Lee, see "Thomas Lee of Stratford 1690-1750" by Jeanne A. Calhoun on Stratford plantation's website. ( Burton J. Hendrick. The Lees of Virginia: Biography of a Family. [Boston: Little Brown, 1935]. pp. 48, 51, etc. )

[2] Carter refers to the fire that burned Lee's house at Machodoc on January 29, 1729, as well as the loss of his own fine new house at Corotoman in late January. The Maryland Gazette reported that "Col. Thomas Lee's fine House in Virginia was burnt, his Office, barns, and Out-houses: His Plate, Cash (to the Sum of 1000 £) Papers, and every Thing intirely lost . . . ." For a good article on Thomas Lee, see that cited in footnote 1. ( See the Maryland Gazette for March 25-April 1, 1729, for the report of Lee's loss. See the Maryland Gazette for February 4-11, 1728/29 for comment on Carter's loss. The Maryland Archives has placed its copies of the Maryland Gazette online. Unfortunately, page four of the issue of February 4-11, 1728/29, is missing, and that must be where the notice of the fire at Corotoman appeared; the text is quoted in secondary sources as reading: "The fine large house of Colonel Carter on the Rappahannock was also burnt lately. The particulars of his loss we can't give you, but we are inform'd it is very great." [ Garden Club of Virginia Journal , May-June 1983, p.8. ]; and see also Carter's letter of May 26, 1729, to Captain John Hyde & Company. )


This text, originally posted in 2005, was revised February 9, 2015, to strengthen the modern language version text.