Born on April 27, 1815, near Fauquier Springs, William Walden Carter was the oldest of at least 12 children born to George Carter and Judith Taylor Walden. Like his father, W.W. Carter was a farmer for his entire life. Like his father, father-in-law, and grandfather, he owned slaves, but unlike them, he lost his human property as a result of the Civil War.

He married Martha E. Nelson at the age of 23, in 1838, and their oldest surviving child George H. was born in 1839. Children Elizabeth (also known as Lucy and Betty), Alice, and Thomas were born in the subsequent decade.

The family lived in the Ashbys census district in 1850, farming on his father-in-law’s property. William Walden Carter owned no land of his own at that time, but he did enslave nine people, ranging in age from 60 to 1 year old.

The 1850s would be a pivotal decade for W.W. Carter. He became a landowner, his youngest two children were born, and both his father in law and his father passed away. In 1851, he purchased 210 acres of land from his father in law for $5089.52 and his son William Walden was born, followed four years later by his youngest surviving son, James Robert. His father in law Thomas Nelson died in 1856, as did his father. In 1859 W.W. Carter expanded his landowning, acquiring land from his neighbor, the widow Georgiana Blight.

How did William Walden Carter have the resources to buy land from his father in law? It’s possible that he came into money due to the settlement of conflict over land in Kentucky belonging to his maternal grandfather Ambrose Walden. (https://www.leagle.com/decision/184019539us1561175#, 39 U.S. 156 (1840); 14 Pet. 156; AMBROSE WALDEN AND OTHERS, APPELLANTS, vs. HENRY I. BODLEY AND OTHERS, APPELLEES. Supreme Court of United States.) Also, in 1852, the Virginia House of Delegates determined that Ambrose Walden’s heirs were entitled to a bounty owing to his service in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Lastly, it is possible that William Walden Carter received money from his father George Carter’s estate upon his death in 1856.

So it is not surprising that William Walden Carter was considerably wealthier in 1860 than he had been in 1850. The 1860 census listed the value of his land as $9040 and recorded that he enslaved fifteen people. His personal property was recorded to be $30,278, although the census taker noted that this was “mostly as Trustee.” (His father-in-law’s will appointed him to be trustee for the children of his deceased sister-in-law Matilda Johnson.)

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, William Walden Carter, at 46 years old, was above the age required to serve in the Confederate military. Instead, he served as captain of the Home Guard. His sons George and Tom both fought for the Confederacy, with Tom, who was only 13 at the start of the Civil War, serving in the 43rd Virginia Battalion, also known as “Mosby’s Rangers,” and George, who was 22 at the outbreak of the war, riding in Company H of the 4th Virginia Cavalry. His company was was known as the Black Horse Troop.

William Walden Carter’s son Tom and daughter Elizabeth left their family home shortly after the Civil War. Elizabeth married Samuel Melville Withers, who during the war had served in the same unit as her brother George. Tom moved in with his sister and her new husband. 

Three of William Walden Carter’s children (George (now 31), Alice (now 26), William (now 19), and James (now 15) still lived with him and his wife at the time of the 1870 census. George’s first wife Mary and his two-year-old daughter Anne also lived in the home. 

Four black individuals lived with the Carter family at that time. It is possible that the adults, Alice Brown, age 22, and Lewis Brown, age 20, had been enslaved by the family prior of 1863 and had chosen to stay on after emancipation. The younger two black household members were Gen Granison, age 13, and Eddy Brown, age 3.

Given the loss of his enslaved property due to emancipation, it is not surprising that William Walden Carter’s personal wealth had declined to only $900 by 1870. The value of his land had fallen as well, but only slightly, to $8000.

The decade of the 1870s would see 2 deaths and 2 marriages in William Walden Carter’s close family. His wife Martha died in 1873, his daughter Elizabeth died in 1874, and his son George’s wife Mary died as well. In 1875, daughter Alice married her deceased sister’s widowed husband. His widowed son George married his second wife, Eliza Gibbs Moore, and moved to the Marshall district of Fauquier County.

Five years after her marriage to Samuel Withers, Alice died. (Her widowed husband married two more times and lived to be 93 years old.)

William Walden Carter’s son Tom married Betty Fletcher on Jan. 7, 1880. Subsequent census records show them living in Orange County, where Betty had grown up. In 1900, the census taker recorded that they had four children ranging in age from 16 to 10: Luclie, Manlie, Ruth, and Roy.

James Robert Carter, W.W. Carter’s youngest son, married Annie Pierce in 1887 and remained in his father’s home after his marriage. By the time of the 1900 census James was the father of five children: Alice, Frank, Martha, James, and Clarence. 

The last of William Walden Carter’s children to marry was his namesake, who married Anna Lee Lake in 1890 at the age of 39. Like most of his siblings, he remained in the Warrenton area. He and Anna Lee had two children: Marie in 1895 and Yates in 1898.  

William Walden Carter, father of six and grandfather of over twenty, died in 1903.