This post from the Virginia Gazette reported the death on January 31, 1770 of Mary Walker Carter, first wife of Charles Carter of Corotoman. Published three weeks after her death, the account said in her Carter “has lost an excellent and affectionate wife, and the parish a charitable and humane neighbour, and benefactress.” Mary and Charles were both the grandchild of Robert “King” Carter but by different wives: Mary by “King” Carter’s second wife Betty Landon Carter and Charles by his first, Judith Armistead Carter.
The paper offered no details on what caused her death and was actually off by one day: buried at Christ Church, next to her grandparents, the inscription on Mary’s stone reads “Under this stone are the remains of Mary Carter, the affectionate wife of Charles Carter of Corotoman who died on the 30th of January, 1770 after a painful illness of three months during which time she discover’d a truly Christian fortitude. Aged 34 years.”
Within the year Charles Carter had remarried. The paper reported in its November 29, 1770, issue that Carter had married “Miss Nancy Moore, second daughter of Colonel Bernard Moore.” In the mid-1770s the couple would move to Shirley on the James River following the death of Carter’s mother, Elizabeth Hill Carter.
