General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Col.
Also Known As:<_AKA> Robert "King" /Carter/
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> J2GR-X4
REFN: 8536
1  _FA1
2  PLAC Chas Hodge Peters' family tree chart says "Robert (King) Carter"
2  SOUR S057321
3  PAGE Minnis-Yates Genealogy
3  NOTE worldconnect@@rootsweb.com (unverified), Minnis-Yates Genealogy. This and other sources confirm Charley Peters' records. Carter's land wealth led to this soubriquet (or was it a moniker?). [MR, 1935-].


of "Corotoman", Lancaster Co, VA.

He was astute in business, politics, and land speculation, and hisfortune, political successes, and estates earneing him the nickname of"King,"  His political power was firmly based in the inheritances that hereceived from his father, Colonel John Carter (c. 1613-1669), from hisolder half-brother, Lt. Col. John Carter (c. 1648-1690), and from familyconnections. Robert returned to Virginia about 1680, having been inEngland for education since about 1673, to take up the life of a Virginiagentleman on the modest estates he had been left by his father. He builta house on the home property at "Corotoman," however, a brickstory-and-a-half structure of three rooms. He lived in it until he movedinto the larger two-story mansion which dominated the Corotoman landscapefor a decade beginning about 1720.

Robert's first position was that of justice of the Lancaster Court, anoffice for which he took the required oaths on 10 June 1690. Election asa vestryman for Christ Church Parish followed on 8 November 1690; about ayear later he was chosen church warden, a position he retained until hisdeath. And service to the colony soon ensued with his election as burgessfor the session beginning 1 April 1692. He was returned to every sessionof the Burgesses until 1699 with the exception of the two sessions heldin 1693.

He took a leading role in the work of the House, and in September 1696Carter was elected Speaker over five other nominees. Carter was notchosen as Speaker for the 1698 session, but was in April 1699. Also atthis session, the House chose Carter as Treasurer of the colony, anoffice which, as Jon Kukla has observed, was one usually associated withthe Speaker. However, the House took the most unusual step of allowingCarter to retain the office of Treasurer even after his appointment tothe Council was confirmed in England by the Privy Council on 14 December1699.

By 1688 it was apparent that John Carter's principal heir was to be hisbrother, and this greatly improved the latter's prospects. Robert wasmarried in that year to Judith Armistead, daughter of John Armistead of"Hesse," Gloucester County; their son, John, was born about 1689, andfour other children followed, Elizabeth in 1692, Judith and Sarah whodied in infancy, and a second Judith in 1695. Because no letters or othertexts survive from this period of his life, little is known about hiswife, or the early years of his children, but presumably the traditionalVirginia custom was followed in raising and educating the Carterchildren. Having renounced the carefree life of the bachelor, Robert wasconsidered ready for the types of public service that his father andbrother had undertaken.

By 1701, he was already one of the most prominent men in the colony as amember of its council, and the significant events of the early portion ofhis life had occurred, including the death of his first wife in 1699 andhis second marriage (to Elizabeth Landon Willis, by whom he would haveten children) in 1701.
The most important events of the last twenty-two years of his life wereto be his term as acting governor of the colony after the death in July1726 of Hugh Drysdale until the arrival of William Gooch in September1727, and his second term as agent for the proprietors of the NorthernNeck. By the time that Carter became acting governor, he was in hissixties and in poor health.

Robert Carter was influential in his own day and left a family dynastythat continues to this day. At one time, he was e