CARTER BRAXTON---PATRIOT--1736-1797

Another Virginian, Carter Braxton was born into a wealthy farmer, landowner in1736.  Both his parents died while Carter and his brother were quite young.
Carter was educated at the college of Wiliam and Mary, and leaving there was married to Miss Judith Robinson when he was nineteen.  She was the daughter of a rich planter thereby adding to his own fortune making him one of the richest in Virginia.
Judith died at the time of the birth of her second child.  She was not yet 21 years of age.
Braxton went to England in 1757 for self improvement and remained until 1760, when he then returned to America and married the daughter of Mr. Corbin (she bore him sixteen children) the royal receiver-general of the customs of Virginia.  With that kind of connection one would think that Braxton would hang closer to the King.  Not so, he was one of the first to raise his voice of patriotism in the House of Burgesses.
He was present when Patrick Henry raised the issue of the Stamp Act made his eloquent speech against the tyranny of the Act.  Braxton was one of those who then retired to a private room to sign a non-importation agreement.
The next year, 1770, Lord Botetourt died and betweee his death and the arrival of the replacement, Lord Dunmore, Braxton held the office of high sheriff but refused to hold it under the new governor.
Dunmore was inept at best and in-efective as an administrator and It was then Mr. Braxton was chosen as one of the delegates to the Continental Congress, where although he was not a dynamic speaker, he made his way to the center of the question.  When he placed his name on the Declaration of Independence he made his palce in history.
When Lord Dunmore made a move toward the public magazines, in 1777, to move the power and shot to the ship-of-war Fowey, off Williamsburg, Patrick Henry formed a company of men and marched on the harbor, gathering more men as he went, and confronted the governor.  Dunmore threatened to shell the city.  In the stand-off Dunmore abdicated. paid a sum for the power and left town.  Virginia was back in the hands of Virginians.
Carter Baxter served his country in various posts until four days before he died!Medicineman!