Figure of the Week

Charles Carter (1738-1796) was known as “Charles Carter of Ludlow,” which was the name of his plantation in Stafford County.  He was the son of Charles Carter (1707-1764) of Stanstead and Cleve and Mary Walker (died 1742).  He was also the grandson of Robert “King” Carter (1663-1732) of Lancaster County.  Around 1755 the younger Charles married Elizabeth Chiswell (1737-1804), the daughter of Col. John Chiswell (c.1715-1766) and Elizabeth Randolph (1715-1776).  From his father Charles, Jr. inherited several thousand acres in Stafford and lived on or very near that part of it that is now Seven Lakes subdivision.  Charles was a notoriously poor money manager and by the mid-1770s he’d turned over his real estate to a group of administrators who divided and sold it to pay his creditors.  By coincidence, the sale of this property coincided with the arrival of a number of Quakers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Most of these were skilled craftsmen who’d come here to work at James Hunter’s manufacturing facility on the Rappahannock River near Falmouth.  The Quakers purchased a good deal of Carter’s land, which spanned both sides of Poplar Road and extended eastward nearly to modern Ramoth Baptist Church and from there southward to the Rappahannock.  They established a meeting house and cemetery on Poplar Road and that area was known for many years as the “Poplar Settlement.”