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 Captain William Strother, November 28, 1729

     Robert Carter writes to Captain William Strother of King George County, November 28, 1729, concerning lands that Strother has purchased from "the Widow Cale" that lie adjacent to lands of Strother's, but to which the estate of Nathaniel Burwell may also have a claim.


Letter from Robert Carter to Captain William Strother, November 28, 1729

-1 -

Corotoman, [Lancaster County, Virginia]

28. Nov. 1729

Cap. William Strother

     I received your Letter of the 13. Instant by my Sloop. It must be owned
the Convenience of the Widow Cale's Land to yours was a temptation to you to
buy it. From what the Widow said to me, & from what others told me I had
Intentions to send Orders to Mr Jones & Threalkill that no more Clearing
should be made on that side next the Widow, until I could be satisfied where
Mr Burwells proper Line should run. This order I now send to Mr
Jones that the Overseer may conform to it. Your Offer seems to be reasonable. You
propose to let me see your papers & your Title. You tell me you claim under
Motts patent; but that I take to be your Mistake. Burwell's Claim is
under Mott's patent, & yours I believe is under Catlet's which must be owned
to be the Elder, if the Widow's Title comes regularly to her. You were Over:
seer of my Affairs when Savage made his Survey, & I am apt to think were
at it. My directions to Savage were, tht. the Owners of the neighbouring Lands
might have Notice, that he would lay it out in a public Manner, &
I have heard several times that Cale was at it & did not oppose his running
that Line. I believe all this you know. I must defend my Grandson's
Lands as well as I can; but where things are plain against me, I should
rather choose to compose things in an amicable way; the Law, as you say, ought to be the Last Resort & is so to all peaceable minds And if it appears we have
cleared into the Widow's Bounds that she has a just Claim to I shall be willing
to purchase the Ground that we have cleared, or rather to the Bounds Savage gave
us. This I think is as fair an Offer as I can make, & I beleive you will think so
too. The Ground already cleared I reckon is but a small piece, & all taken in
within the Widow's Bounds not very large. I write to Mr Jones to this purpose
& am


              Your humble Servant.

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 county and colony have been added for clarity to the heading on the draft.

[1] William Threalkill is mentioned in the 1733 inventory of Carter's estate as the overseer at Poplar Quarter, Stafford County. (Carter Papers: An Inventory. . . ." .)

[2] John Savage was a surveyor, later (1734) to be employed by Lord Fairfax while attempting to establish the boundaries of the proprietary. He had been appointed surveyor for King George County the year after that county was formed in 1720, and was referred to then as "gentleman." He was surveyor of Stafford County when he particpated in the Fairfax survey. ( Genealogies of Virginia Families from Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine. [Genealogical Publishing Co, 1981] Vol. I [of 4]:473; Brown. Virginia Baron. . . . pp. 83, 86, 88, 92; and Harrison. Landmarks. . . . p. 619. )

[3] Robert Carter's oldest daughter, Elizabeth, had three sons by her first husband, Nathaniel Burwell.


This text, originally posted in 2005, was revised July 20, 2015, to add footnotes and strengthen the modern language version text.