• General Notes

  Notes for CARTER BEVERLEY, SR:
  
  
  "At 19 South Market Street in Staunton there stands an enormous white brick house, set well back from the street behind a terraced lawn. Over the front door is a wide arched fanlight, and under the four front windows on the first floor are small iron balconies.
  For more than two hundred years this building--undergoing various changes--has been a Staunton landmark, and although it has not always been as we see it today, the principal rooms remain as they were when they were planned and erected by William Beverley, loyal Tory and indefatigable colonizer.
  It is hard to realize that the Shenandoah Valley was practically a wilderness when William Beverley received from Governor Gooch a grant of 118,491 acres 'in consideration for inducing a large number of settlers to the community.' Augusta County was not to be formed for two years more, 1738, and the present city of Staunton would not be named until 1761. The settlers who had already arrived were putting together cabins of chinked logs and stone.
  In the midst of this pioneer region William Beverley began to build what was called 'a Manor Mansion House' which amazed his neighbors who, unless they had traveled across the Blue Ridge Mountains to Tidewater, had never seen such magnificence before.  The wide hall had a great staircase. The four rooms--two on each side--were twenty feet square and lofty in proportion. There wer paneled wainscotings and windows with deep embrasures.
  To be sure, colonial law ordered that a man must build a dwelling on his land, but there was no law or precedent for a dwelling of such dimensions. Furthermore, it was remarkable that William Beverley should want such a house, for he already possessed his large manor of which he was extremely fond, named Blandfield, in Essex County.
  William Beverley's only son Robert inherited his father's Valley holdings in 1756, but although he came frequently to Staunton he apparently preferred to lodge elsewhere than in the huge, echoing house. But his son, Carter, seems to have inherited his grandfather's interest in the old place. He rented it from Daniel Sheffey, who had bought it in 1805, and accumulated suitable furniture for the big square rooms, and the best English silverware and glass and china he could find, for entertaining on a lavish scale. He stocked the roomy stables with blooded horses and his guests were free to follow the chase or ride over to Waynesboro where there was a level race track.
  As elsewhere in Virginia, the love of horses was accompanied by the love of dancing, and when three of the big rooms in the Manor Mansion were thrown together, they made a tremendous ballroom, which never lacked couples in silks, satins, brocades and fine broadcloth." [Rothery, Agnes, Houses Virginians Have Loved, Bonanza Books, New York, 1955, pp 75-77.]
  
  
  More About CARTER BEVERLEY, SR: Public Office: Justice of Culpeper County, Virginia58 Residence: "Cedar Level," Prince George County, Virginia; Culpeper County, Virginia; "Kalorama," Augusta Counties, Virginia; The Cedars," Columbus, Mississippi58,59,60
  

Details of Carter Sr's family with Jane Wormley