King And Queen-Middlesex-King William County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Braxton, Carter  September 10, 1736 - October 6, 1797
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Alice Warner http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00015.html#0003503 April 2, 2008, 10:19 pm

Author: Henry Howe

This county is the birthplace of Carter Braxton, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence. He was born at Newington, September 10th, 1736. His
father was a wealthy planter, and his mother a daughter of Robert Carter, at one
time president of the council of the colony. Mr. Braxton, having graduated at
William and Mary at the age of nineteen, married Miss Judith Robinson, an
accomplished lady, and daughter of a wealthy planter of Middlesex. His style of
living was according to the general mode of southern hospitality of that day,
and subjected him to great expense. 

As early as 1765, he was a member of the House of Burgesses when Patrick Henry's
celebrated resolutions were passed. In 1769, when Gov. Botetourt, in consequence
of the bold and spirited measures introduced, suddenly dissolved the Assembly,
Mr. Braxton was one of the members who retired to a private room and signed a
written non-importation agreement. In the next house, he was on three of the
standing committees. He was elected a member from King William to the first
Virginia convention, in 1774. At the period of the disturbance caused by the
removal of the gunpowder from the magazine at Williamsburg by Lord Dunmore, Mr.
Braxton was essentially instrumental in effecting a settlement on the part of
his lordship which pacified the excited populace. He was a very active and
useful member of the last House of Burgesses ever convened in Virginia by royal
authority, and was employed upon the committees of the house to whom were
referred the subjects of dispute between his lordship and the legislature. Mr.
Braxton was a member of the convention chosen by the people which met in
Richmond in July, 1775, and was placed upon the committee of public safety. In
December of the same year, he was appointed the successor of Peyton Randolph in
Congress, that gentleman having died a short time previous. He was omitted in
the election of members to Congress subsequent upon the Declaration of
Independence. But on a meeting of the General Assembly, the first under the new
constitution, of which he was a member, he, with Mr. Jefferson, received a vote
of thanks from the Assembly, "for the eloquence, ability, and integrity with
which they executed the important trust reposed in them, as two of the delegates
of the county [..illegible county name..] in the general Congress." He was a
member of Congress from 1777 to 1783 and in 1785. From 1786 to 1791, he was a
member of the council of the state, and from 1794 until the day of his death,
Oct. 6th 1797. Mr. Braxton's services, it will be seen, were highly important.
The confidence and attachment of his constituents were unequivocally manifested
in every vicissitude of circumstance, some of which were of the most afflictive
kind, even to the close of his life.

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