Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/436

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

ginia, and a writer of legal text books, he made great reputation for its law school, and won lasting honors for himself as the South's great teacher, who ""taught the law and the reason thereof." The new law build- ing at the university is named "Minor Hall'' in his honor. It is said of him that "'in the fifty years of his work in the law school of the university, he exerted, and still indirectly exerts, a wider influence for good upon so- ciety in the United States than any man who has lived in this generation." His sec- ond wife, Ann Fisher Colston, was a sister of Mr. Blackford's wife. Of this marriage there survive him two sons, John B. Minor, Jr., a lawyer of Richmond, arid Raleigh Col- ston Minor, professor of law at the univer- sity, and two daughters, Susan Colston Minor, who married John Wilson, and Nan- nie, unmarried, head of the Nurses Settle- ment work in Richmond.

Major John Minor's fifth child was Mary Overton, born in 1765. His sixth, another daughter, Diana, born 1767, married Richard Maury, of Spottsylvania county, Virginia, whose fourth son was the famous Com- modore Matthew Fontaine Maury, the "Pathfinder of the Seas."

Sarah, Major Minor's seventh child, was born in 1773, and married Harwood Good- win. His son, Charles Minor, educated in Edinburgh, a physician, died voung, unmar- ried. Elizabeth Minor, his ninth child, born in 1776, became the second wife of Mr. Humphrey Hill, and died without issue. Barbara, the tenth child, married Kemp Gatewood, of Essex county.

Maior Minor's brothers and sisters, the other children of the first John Minor and his wife, Sarah, were: (2) William Minor, born 1736; died December 14, 1815, leaving a large estate. Nothing further is known of him or his descendants. (3) Thomas Minor, of Spottsylvania coimty, born Au- gust 5, 1740; died March. 1815 ; married Mary Dabney. (4) Nancy (or Mary), born March 5, 1741, died 1818, married Joseph Herndon, of Spottsylvania county. (5) Garrett, born March 14, 1743, died June 25, 1799, married Mary Overton Terrell, built "Sunning Hill," Spottsylvania county. (6) James, of Albemarle, born 1745, died 1790, married Alary Carr, of Bear Castle, Gooch- land county. (7) Diana, born 1747, died unmarried. (8) Dabney, born June 11, 1749, died November 4, 1794, married Nancy An-

derson, lived at Woodlawn, Orange county. (9j Vivian, born November 4, 1750, died October 15, 1798, lived at Springfield, Caro- line county, married (first) Barbara Cosby, and (second) Elizabeth Dick. (10) Eliza- beth Minor, born August 16, 1752, married James Lewis, of Laurel Hill, Spottsylvania county, died March 30, 1786. (11) Peter, born August 16, 1755, married Miss Jones, lived in Petersburg, and died in 1793. . Mr. Blackford's mother, Mary Berkeley Minor, was named for her father's first wife. Her own mother was Lucy Landon Carter, a daughter of Landon Carter, of Cleve, King George county.

The records of the Carter family, in all its man}^ ramifications, are familiar to every student of Virginia genealogy, and are easily accessible. Therefore, only the direct an- cestors of Air. Blackford are given in this line. The first of the Carter name in Vir- ginia of whom there is definite information was John Carter, of "\'pper Norfolk," in the county of '"Nanzimun in the years 1643 3-"^ 44," subsequently of Lancaster county. He represented Lancaster in the House of Bur- gesses in 1655, and the same year he was appointed commander of the forces sent against the Rappahannock Indians. He served again in the House of Burgesses in 1657-58-59 and 60. After the dissolution of the House in 1657-58 he was sworn in as one of the governor's council, and on the 3rd of April, 1659, "was nominated by Gov- ernor Bennet to be of the council and ap- pointed by the assembly." His tomb in Christ Church, Lancaster county, records June 10, 1669, as the date of his death. This edifice, erected by his son, Robert Carter, replaced an earlier structure built by him.

He married three times, and of his third marriage with Sarah Ludlowe, daughter of Gabriel Ludlowe, was born in 1663, in Christ Church parish, Robert Carter of Co- rotoman, in Lancaster county, known as ■"King Carter" from his great wealth and influence. The epitaph on his tomb in Christ Church, records his virtues and achieve- ments. Translated from the Latin, it says :

Here lies Robert Carter an honorable man who by noble endowments and pure morals gave lustre to his gentle birth.

Rector of William and Mary College he sus- tained that institution in its most trying times. He was Speaker of the House of Burgesses and Treas- urer under the most serene princes, William. Ann, George I. and George II. Elected by the House