Carr was a passionate political supporter of Jefferson and the Republican Party, but his first effort to advance their interests failed. Under the pseudonym John Langhorne, he addressed a letter to George Washington on September 25, 1797, commiserating with him on alleged calumnies directed at the former president in his retirement. After Washington dispatched a predictably cautious reply, a local Federalist informed him of the subterfuge and charged that Carr had hoped to elicit an indiscreet response. The incident dealt a final blow to Washington's already deteriorating relationship with Jefferson but otherwise achieved nothing.
Carr's subsequent political career was more straightforward. After a failed attempt to win election to the House of Delegates in 1799, he supported Jefferson during the 1800 presidential campaign. Carr became a justice of the peace for Albemarle County on April 18, 1801, and about the same time he was elected to represent the county in the House of Delegates. He served three consecutive one-year terms, from 1801 to 1804, and won the same seat a final time for the 1807–1808 session. In all but his third term Carr sat on the Committee for Courts of Justice, and he also served on the Committee of Propositions and Grievances in his first term. He chaired the Committee of Privileges and Elections and served on two minor committees during the 1803–1804 session. Carr lost his bid for reelection in 1808 and was defeated again a year later when he ran for the state senate. A supporter in the latter campaign urged Carr to display less pride and more familiarity with the voters, attitudes that may help explain these failures.
Time Line
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January 2, 1770 - Peter Carr is born in Saint James Northam Parish, Goochland County, most likely at the Spring Forest plantation of his parents, Dabney Carr, a lawyer, and Martha Jefferson Carr, sister of Thomas Jefferson.
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1786–1789 - Peter Carr studies at the College of William and Mary and as a private student of George Wythe.
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ca. 1790 - Peter Carr begins to study law at Spring Forest and Monticello under the direction of Thomas Jefferson.
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1793 - Peter Carr is admitted to the bar but practices only briefly.
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1794 - Peter Carr inherits some slaves and about 500 acres of land in Louisa County, but lives at Monticello until August 1796, when construction projects cause him to move into Charlottesville.
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June 6, 1797 - Peter Carr marries Esther "Hetty" Smith Stevenson, a widow with one son. They will have four sons and four daughters; two sons and one daughter die in infancy.
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September 25, 1797 - Peter Carr writes a letter to George Washington under the pseudonym John Langhorne. The letter, written with the goal of eliciting an indiscreet response from the former president, commiserates with Washington on alleged calumnies directed at him in his retirement.
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1798 - After this date, Peter Carr lives with his family at Carrsbrook, a 900-acre estate about five miles north of Charlottesville that the Carrs borrowed and then purchased from Wilson Cary Nicholas, Hetty Carr's brother-in-law.
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1799 - Peter Carr fails to win election to the House of Delegates.
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April 18, 1801 - Peter Carr becomes a justice of the peace for Albemarle County, and at about the same time is elected to represent the county in the House of Delegates. He serves three consecutive one-year terms in the House, from 1801 to 1804.
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1803 - Peter Carr is named a founding trustee of the Albemarle Academy, an institution that exists only on paper until March 25, 1814.
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1807 - Peter Carr wins a seat in the House of Delegates representing Albemarle County.
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1811 - Peter Carr opens a successful but short-lived academy at Carrsbrook, his 900-acre estate.
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April 6, 1814 - Peter Carr is named president of the Albemarle Academy.
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August 1814 - In the aftermath of the British army's destruction of Washington, D.C., militiamen, among them Peter Carr, guard the approaches to Richmond.
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September 7, 1814 - Thomas Jefferson writes a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, outlining his own educational philosophy and encouraging Carr to apply it to the establishment of Albemarle Academy, which exists in name only and of which Carr is president.
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February 17, 1815 - Peter Carr dies at Carrsbrook. He is likely buried near his parents and children in the family cemetery at Monticello, but no gravestone survives.
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October 24, 1858 - In a letter to her husband, Joseph Coolidge, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge denies the possibility that her grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, could have fathered children by the slave Sally Hemings. She also reports on speculation that Jefferson's nephews, Peter and Samuel Carr, may have been responsible.
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June 1, 1868 - Henry S. Randall writes to James Parton a letter recounting his conversation with Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson of Thomas Jefferson, in which Randolph asserts that Peter Carr, not Jefferson, was the father of Sally Hemings's children.
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November 5, 1998 - "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child" is published in Nature magazine. It details the results of a genetic study by Dr. Eugene A. Foster concluding that "a Jefferson male"—although not necessarily Thomas Jefferson—had fathered Eston Hemings.
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January 2000 - An investigation by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which has owned and operated Monticello since 1923, releases the findings of an investigation, concluding that Thomas Jefferson was probably the father of Sally Hemings's children.
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Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Looney, J. J., & the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Peter Carr (1770–1815). (2016, September 29). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Carr_Peter_1770-1815.
- MLA Citation:
Looney, J. Jefferson and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Peter Carr (1770–1815)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 29 Sep. 2016. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: November 5, 2012 | Last modified: September 29, 2016
Contributed by J. Jefferson Looney and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. J. Jefferson Looney is editor-in-chief of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series.