Archibald Cary was a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, and major landowner.
Background
Archibald Cary was born in 1721 in Virginia, United Statess. He was the son of Henry and Anne (Edwards) Cary, came from a typical great family of eighteenth-century Virginia. Before 1667, Miles Cary the immigrant, whose ancestors since 1546 had been prosperous merchants and high municipal officers in Bristol, England, was flourishing in Virginia. There the Carys maintained their mercantile position while they also became great planters, public officials, and aristocrats.
Archibald's father, landholder and high sheriff, was the contracting builder of court-houses and churches.
Education
He was educated in Williamsburg and Ampthill, Virginia and is believed to have attended the College of William and Mary.
Career
During the American Revolutionary War, Cary was placed in charge of recruitment and supplies in central Virginia. He was asked by Thomas Jefferson, his colleague in the House of Burgesses and fellow graduate of the College of William & Mary, to loan the Virginia Colony the funds to underwrite the cost of the Virginia militia, on the promise by Jefferson he would be repaid later, though he never was repaid. He did fund the Virginia militia for the following reason: though he had always been loyal to the Crown (he had a Charter from the Crown for all his thousands of acres of property at Ampthill plantation), he had grown tired of British attempts to continue promoting the sale of slaves in America. Although he owned some 200 slaves, he had come to the conclusion that everything about the slave trade and the owning of slaves was only going to create major problems.
Achievements
Cary was a member of the Convention of 1776, Speaker of the Senate of Virginia and one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Virginia during and after the American Revolution.
Religion
Cary was known among Baptists for arresting many Baptists for preaching without a license. There was one incident where a Baptist preacher continued to preach from his cell window. To solve the problem, Cary put a wall around the prison.
Politics
When the House of Burgesses was dissolved at the outset of the American Revolution, he served as a delegate to the Virginia Conventions. At the Fifth Virginia Convention in May 1776, he served as the chairman of the committee of the whole that adopted the celebrated resolution of independence, which instructed Virginia's delegates to the Second Continental Congress to propose a declaration of independence. After Virginia became an independent state in 1776, Cary became the first speaker of the Senate of Virginia, and remained in that position until his death.
Membership
In 1773 Cary served as a member of Virginia's committee of correspondence.
Cary was a member of the House of Burgesses from 1756 to 1776. In 1764, he served on the committee of Burgesses that wrote resolutions against the proposed Stamp Act, but the following year he voted against Patrick Henry's Virginia Resolves as being premature and too inflammatory.
Personality
Bright-eyed, compact, and muscular, he was masterful, and was bitingly dubbed by a contemporary "Old Bruiser, " but a British prisoner found him courteous, genial, and hospitable, and Washington, eleven years younger, affectionately called him "Archy. "
Connections
At twenty-three, Cary married Mary Randolph, granddaughter of the famous Turkey Island couple; through his mother, he was cousin to his fellow patriot, Benjamin Harrison; and his children's marriages additionally linked him with leading Virginian families.
The two had nine children together and, through his marriage, Cary's children were lineal descendants of Pocahontas.
