Figure of the Week

James Carter (1697-1743) lived at Palace Green just to the north of Aquia Harbour subdivision.  James was the son of Thomas Carter (1632-1700) and Katherine Dale (1652-1703) of Lancaster County, Virginia.  Researchers believe there may have been a kinship between Thomas Carter and Robert “King” Carter (1663-1732) of Lancaster, though this has yet to be proved.  James married first in 1715 Hannah Neale (c.1695-1722), the daughter of Daniel Neale of Lancaster.  He married secondly in Stafford in 1724 Mary Brent (c.1686-after 1743), the daughter of Hugh Brent (II) (c.1659-1716), also of Lancaster.  During the 1720s, James was employed as the compiler of quit rents for this region of the Northern Neck, thus the reason he moved to Stafford from Lancaster.  He served as a magistrate in Stafford in the 1730s.  His house stood on the top of a high hill overlooking Aquia Creek and the little town of Aquia.  Many of Stafford’s Carter family of the nineteenth century descended from this man and some of them seem to have been involved with the freestone industry here.