KING AND QUEEN.
King and Queen was formed from New Kent in 1691, the third
year of the reign of William and Mary. The Mattapony runs on
its SW. and the Piankatank on a portion of its NE. boundary. Its
length is 40 miles, mean width 11 miles. Immense beds of marl run
through the county, and furnish an inexhaustible source of improvement
to the soil. No county in the state contains memorials
of greater magnificence. On the Mattapony, a beautiful stream,
are the vestiges of many ancient and once highly-improved seats,
among which are Laneville, Pleasant Hill, Newington, Mantapike,
Mantua, Rickahoe, White Hall, &c., known as the former residences
of the Braxtons, Corbins, Robinsons, &c. Cotton and Indian
corn are extensively produced. Pop. in 1840, whites 4,426,
slaves 5,937, free colored 499; total, 10,862.
The Court-House is near the Mattapony, 53 miles NE. from Richmond.
Newtown in the N., and Little Plymouth in the S. part of
the county, are small places; the former, which is the largest, has
about 20 dwellings. Dunkirk, now a post-office only, was, 30 or
40 years since, a village of considerable trade; but its unhealthiness
and other causes have nearly obliterated it.
This county is the birthplace of Carter Braxton, one of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence. He was born at Newington, September 10th, 1736. His
father was a wealthy planter, and his mother a daughter of Robert Carter, at one time
president of the council of the colony. Mr. Braxton, having graduated at William and
Mary at the age of nineteen, married Miss Judith Robinson, an accomplished lady, and
daughter of a wealthy planter of Middlesex. His style of living was according to the
general mode of southern hospitality of that day, and subjected him to great expense.
As early as 1765, he was a member of the House of Burgesses when Patrick Henry's
celebrated resolutions were passed. In 1769, when Gov. Botetourt, in consequence of
the bold and spirited measures introduced, suddenly dissolved the Assembly, Mr. Braxton
was one of the members who retired to a private room and signed a written non-importation
agreement. In the next house, he was on three of the standing committees.
He was elected a member from King William to the first Virginia convention, in 1774.
At the period of the disturbance caused by the removal of the gunpowder from the
magazine at Williamsburg by Lord Dunmore, Mr. Braxton was essentially instrumental
in effecting a settlement on the part of his lordship which pacified the excited populace.
He was a very active and useful member of the last House of Burgesses ever convened
in Virginia by royal authority, and was employed upon the committees of the house to
whom were referred the subjects of dispute between his lordship and the legislature. Mr.
Braxton was a member of the convention chosen by the people which met in Richmond
in July, 1775, and was placed upon the committee of public safety. In December of
the same year, he was appointed the successor of Peyton Randolph in Congress, that
gentleman having died a short time previous. He was omitted in the election of members
to Congress subsequent upon the Declaration of Independence. But on a meeting
of the General Assembly, the first under the new constitution, of which he was a member,
he, with Mr. Jefferson, received a vote of thanks from the Assembly, "for the eloquence,
ability, and integrity with which they executed the important trust reposed in
them, as two of the delegates of the count in the general Congress."
He was a member of Congress from 1777 to 1783, and in 1785. From 1786 to 1791 he
was a member of the council of the state, and from 1794 until the day of his death,
Oct. 6th, 1797. Mr. Braxton's services, it will be seen, were highly important. The
confidence and attachment of his constituents were unequivocally manifested in every
vicissitude of circumstance, some of which were of the most afflictive kind, even to the
close of his life.
