Carter Braxton

Carter Braxton
Assumed portrait of Braxton
Born	(1736-09-10)September 10, 1736 King and Queen County, Virginia
Died	October 10, 1797(1797-10-10) (aged 61) Richmond, Virginia
Alma mater	College of William and Mary
Known for	signer of the United States Declaration of Independence
Signature

Carter Braxton (September 10, 1736 – October 10, 1797) was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as a merchant, planter, and Virginia politician. A grandson of Robert “King” Carter, one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners and slaveholders in the Old Dominion, Carter Braxton was active in Virginia's legislature for more than 25 years, generally allied with Landon Carter, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton and other conservative planters.

Carter Braxton was born on Newington Plantation in King and Queen County, Virginia on September 10, 1736, but wrongly reported as dead along with his mother, Mary Carter Braxton, who "unhappily catching Cold," died shortly after his birth. His maternal grandfather, King Carter, possibly the wealthiest man as well as the largest landowner in Virginia at the time of his death, had bequeathed ₤2,000 to his youngest daughter, who became bethrothed to George Braxon Jr. five months after her father's death (although her brother had not paid that full amount to her new husband by the time of her death). His paternal grandfather, George Braxton, Sr. by 1704 (before western lands were opened to European settlement) had also become one of the 100 largest landowners in Virginia's Northern Neck. George Braxton Sr. had been elected for the first time to the House of Burgesses in 1718, and was reelected nine years later with John Robinson, Jr., who would become the powerful Speaker of the House of Burgesses and benefactor of the Braxton family. The elder Braxton owned at least one ship, the 'Braxton' that traded with the West Indies and elsewhere, and was commission agent for cargoes of enslaved blacks sold to Virginia planters. He died, aged 71, when Carter was twelve; his eldest son (Carter's father) George Jr. had succeeded him as delegate for King and Queen County in 1742, but himself died not long thereafter (in 1749). Speaker Robinson and neighbor Humphrey Hill served as guardians for Carter and his slightly (3 year) elder brother George (who inherited Newington and various land in King and Queen and Essex County).