Samuel Carr (politician)

Last updated
Samuel Carr
Born(1771-10-09)October 9, 1771
DiedJuly 26, 1855(1855-07-26) (aged 83)
Occupation(s)Politician, Planter
Spouse(s)Ellen Boucher, Maria Watson Dabney
Children5–7
Parent(s) Dabney Carr
Martha Jefferson Carr
Relatives Thomas Jefferson (uncle)
Dabney Carr (brother)
Peter Carr (brother)

Samuel Carr (1771-1855) was an American politician, soldier, and planter who served in the Maryland House of Delegates, the Virginia House of Delegates, and the Virginia Senate. He is best known as a player in the Jefferson-Hemings controversy as he, alongside his brother Peter, was at one time rumored to have fathered children by Sally Hemings.

Contents

Personal life

Carr was born on October 9, 1771, at Spring Forest, a plantation in Goochland County, Virginia, the son of Virginia politician, planter, and lawyer Dabney Carr and Martha Jefferson Carr. Martha was the sister of Thomas Jefferson, and therefore Samuel Carr was Jefferson's nephew. His father died when Carr was less than two years old, and for a time his mother attempted to continue raising her children at Spring Forest, but by 1781 the family had moved to Monticello, Jefferson's plantation. [1] [2] Jefferson was an executor of Dabney Carr's estate, and arranged for a Maryland relative, Overton Carr, to guide Samuel's education. Thus Samuel moved to Prince George's County, Maryland, where he met and married his first wife (and first cousin), Ellen Boucher Carr. [3] Jefferson also helped to secure the promised inheritance of a nearby plantation, Dunlora, which had been promised to Samuel by another uncle at his birth. After securing Dunlora, Carr moved back to Virginia to establish a household with his wife and his mother. [1] [2]

Carr would have four children with Ellen, before a prolonged illness took her life in July, 1815, leaving Samuel a widower. During the interval before he remarried, Carr may have fathered at least one child, and perhaps two children, with a free woman of color named Judath Barnett who lived near Dunlora. Two of Barnett's children, Miles and Zachariah, later changed their last name to Carr, and Samuel helped secure an apprenticeship for Miles, although at no point did he publicly acknowledge that either of the boys were his. In December 1818, Samuel remarried, taking a much younger Maria Watson Dabney as his wife, with whom he would have one more child. Over the next decade, he rebuilt the plantation house at Dunlora, in part using brick leftover from the construction of the main buildings at the University of Virginia. He continued to expand plantation operations, and by 1830 he owned 44 slaves. [2] [1]

By the mid-1840s, Carr had deeded all his property to his children. He eventually moved closer to his eldest son in Kanawha County in the western reaches of Virginia, which would soon separate to form West Virginia. Carr died on July 26, 1855, in Charleston, later the capital of West Virginia, at age 83. [2] [1]

Career

Carr served, from 1792 to 1802, as Captain of Cavalry in Albemarle County's First Battalion, 47th Regiment. During the War of 1812, he again served a Captain of Cavalry, this time with the Albemarle Volunteers, First Elite Corps, under Colonel Thomas Mann Randolph, his second cousin once removed. This unit's mission was to defend Norfolk, but they saw little, if any, action. Carr was discharged in Richmond on September 20, 1814. [2] [1]

Carr served in the Maryland House of Delegates during the 1801–1802 and 1802–1803 terms, representing Prince George's County, Maryland, before his return in 1803 to Virginia. [4] [5] He later served in both the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate, and as a magistrate for Albemarle County, Virginia. [3]

Jefferson-Hemings controversy

In 1802 journalist James Thomson Callender claimed that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. These claims were given credence due to several factors such as Jefferson's presence at Monticello during the time periods that the children were conceived and the lack of pregnancies when he was not present. Theories that Carr and his brother Peter could have fathered the children surfaced in the mid-1800s due to secondhand accounts where Thomas Jefferson Randolph claimed that Peter and Samuel Carr were responsible. [6] These claims are still given credence by some scholars, even though DNA tests in 1998 ruled that the Carrs could not have fathered one of Hemings's children, Eston. [3]

Related Research Articles

Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a slave with one-quarter African ancestry who was owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.

Randolph Jefferson was the younger brother of Thomas Jefferson, the only male sibling to survive infancy. He was a planter and owner of the Snowden plantation that he inherited from his father. He served the local militia for about ten years, making captain of the local militia in 1794. He also served during the Revolutionary War.

Martha Skelton Jefferson was the wife of Thomas Jefferson from 1772 until her death. She served as First Lady of Virginia during Jefferson's term as governor from 1779 to 1781. She died in 1782, 19 years before he became president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilson Cary Nicholas</span> American politician

Wilson Cary Nicholas was an American politician who served in the U.S. Senate from 1799 to 1804 and was the 19th Governor of Virginia from 1814 to 1816.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Jefferson Randolph</span> First Lady of the United States from 1801 to 1809

Martha "Patsy" Randolph was the eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, and his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. She was born at Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wayles Eppes</span> American politician (1772–1823)

John Wayles Eppes was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1811 and again from 1813 to 1815. He also served in the U.S. Senate (1817–1819). His positions in Congress occurred after he served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Chesterfield County (1801–1803).

Peter Field Jefferson was a planter, cartographer and politician in colonial Virginia best known for being the father of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The "Fry-Jefferson Map", created by Peter in collaboration with Joshua Fry in 1757, accurately charted the Allegheny Mountains for the first time and showed the route of "The Great Road from the Yadkin River through Virginia to Philadelphia distant 455 Miles"—what would later come to be known as the Great Wagon Road. Likewise, it indicates the route of the Trading Path from Petersburg to Old Hawfields, North Carolina and beyond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Mann Randolph Jr.</span> American politician (1768–1828)

Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. was an American planter, soldier, and politician from Virginia. He served as a member of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, a representative in the United States Congress, and as the 21st governor of Virginia, from 1819 to 1822. He married Martha Jefferson, the oldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. They had eleven children who survived childhood. As an adult, Randolph developed alcoholism, and he and his wife separated for some time before his death.

John Jouett Jr. was an American farmer and politician in Virginia and Kentucky best known for his 40-mile (60 km) ride during the American Revolution. Sometimes called the "Paul Revere of the South", Jouett rode to warn Thomas Jefferson, then the outgoing governor of Virginia that British cavalry had been sent to capture them. After the war, Jouett moved across the Appalachian Mountains to what was then called Kentucky County. He thrice served in the Virginia House of Delegates, first representing Lincoln County and later Mercer County before Kentucky's statehood. Jouett also represented Mercer County at the Danville Separation Convention in 1788. He later served three terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives, first representing Mercer County, then adjoining Woodford County.

The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had a slave concubine, Sally Hemings. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madison Hemings</span> American freed slave (1805–1877)

Madison Hemings was the son of Sally Hemings and, most likely, Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of Sally Hemings’ four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery, according to partus sequitur ventrem, Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation, where his mother was also enslaved. After some light duties as a young boy, Hemings became a carpenter and fine woodwork apprentice at around age 14 and worked in the joiner's shop until he was about 21. He learned to play the violin and was able to earn money by growing cabbages. Jefferson died in 1826, after which Sally Hemings was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph.

Dabney Carr was a Virginia lawyer, writer and a justice of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Jefferson Randolph</span> American politician

Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, and as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The favorite grandson of President Thomas Jefferson, he helped manage Monticello near the end of his grandfather's life and was executor of his estate, and later also served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Jefferson</span> Man enslaved by Thomas Jefferson (1775–1846)

Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger was an enslaved artisan of US President Thomas Jefferson who crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello.

Elizabeth Hemings was a female slave of mixed-ethnicity in colonial Virginia. With her owner, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were considered slaves from birth; they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other slaves were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson.

Dabney Carr was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and was married to Martha Jefferson, the sister of Thomas Jefferson. He introduced the Committee of correspondence in Virginia which was a leading factor in the formation of the Continental Congress in 1774. Carr and Jefferson were good friends and, fulfilling a boyhood promise, was buried in the Monticello graveyard. His sons included politicians Peter and Samuel Carr and Judge Dabney Carr.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 600 slaves during his adult life. Jefferson freed two slaves while he lived, and five others were freed after his death, including two of his children from his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. His other two children with Hemings were allowed to escape without pursuit. After his death, the rest of the slaves were sold to pay off his estate's debts.

John Wayles was a colonial American planter, slave trader and lawyer in colonial Virginia. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Wayles married three times, with these marriages producing eleven children; only five of them lived to adulthood. Through his female slave Betty Hemings, Wayles fathered six additional children, including Sally Hemings, who was the mother of six children by Thomas Jefferson and half-sister of Martha Jefferson.

Israel Jefferson, known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Carr (Virginia politician)</span> American politician

Peter Carr was an American educator and politician who served several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates. He is primarily known for the Jefferson–Hemings controversy, as he was rumored to have fathered children by Sally Hemings.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Anderson, W.P. (1938). The Early Descendants of William Overton and Elizabeth Waters of Virginia. Cincinnati, Ohio.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Stannard, W.G. (1895). "Notes and Queries: Library of Dabney Carr, 1773, with a Notice of the Carr Family". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. II.
  3. 1 2 3 "Samuel Carr". Monticello. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  4. "Session of November 1, 1802 - January 11, 1803". Historical List. Archives of Maryland. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  5. "Session of November 2 - December 31, 1801". Historical List. Archives of Maryland. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  6. Gordon-Reed, Annette (1997). Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. University of Virginia Press. ISBN   0813916984 . Retrieved 28 October 2015.