McCauley, Lanier, Hankins, Hopkins & Taylor Families

Dabney CARR ³³⁰⁹

  General Notes:

Dabney Carr was a friend and schoolmate of Thomas Jefferson. He was educated at William and Mary College and became a lawyer. Carr, Jefferson and Patrick Henry all served together in the Virginia House of Burgesses and Carr married Jefferson's sister, Martha. Dabney was the 1st person buried in the family cemetery at Jefferson's plantation, Monticello (per Monticello web site).

According to "Carr Family Records" by Edson I. Carr: Dabney Carr was a member of the House of Burgesses and introduced a bill of rights, which was regarded as the entering wedge to the separation of the colonies from England. Jefferson regarded Carr's speech as "a master-piece of patriotic eloquence". Jefferson wrote: "I well remember the pleasure expressed in the countenances and conversation of the members generally on this debut of Mr. Carr and the hopes they conceived as well from the talent as the patriotism manifested. But he died within two months after and in him we lost a powerful fellow laborer. His character was of a high order."

According to the Monticello web site: (1) The family tradition of the founding of the Monticello Graveyard is told in the words of Sarah N. Randolph of Edgehill in The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson - "Of the many friends by whom Jefferson was surrounded in his college days Dabney Carr was his favorite: his friendship for him was strengthened by the ties of family connection, on his becoming his brother-in-law as the husband of his sister Martha. As boys they had loved each other; and when studying together it was their habit to go with their books to the well-wooded sides of Monticello, and there pursue their studies beneath the shade of a favorite oak. So much attached did the friends become to this tree, that it became the subject of a mutual promise, that the one who survived should see that the body of the other was buried at its foot."

(2) Henry S. Randall, in his Life of Thomas Jefferson, written somewhat over a hundred years ago, stated: "On the 16th of May in 1773, just thirty five days after his first and last speech in the House of Burgesses, Dabney Carr died at Charlottesville, of a bilious fever, in the thirtieth year of his age. The course of the disease was violent and brief, in so much that he could not be moved home, nor could Mr. Jefferson who was absent (at Williamsburg, we think) be summoned before his death and burial - He was buried at Shadwell, but Mr. Jefferson caused his body to be disinterred, and removed to a grave beneath their favorite oak on Monticello."

Dabney married Martha JEFFERSON on 20 July 1765.³⁰⁰⁷ (Martha JEFFERSON was born in 1746,³³⁹⁸ died in 1811 ³³⁹⁸ and was buried in Monticello Graveyard, Albemarle County, Virginia ³³⁹⁸.)