Hunnicutt, James W (1814–1880) – Encyclopedia Virginia encyclopediavirginia.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from encyclopediavirginia.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Thomas Russell Bowden was born on May 20, 1841, near Williamsburg, the son of Lemuel J. Bowden and Martha Ellen Shackelford Bowden, and grew up on one of his father’s farms. In 1859 he entered the College of William and Mary, where he studied Latin, Greek, French, history, and economics for two years. As a member of the college’s Phoenix Literary Society, Bowden won a gold medal for his debating skills. He probably also studied law in his father’s Williamsburg office.
Bowden’s father and his uncle Henry M. Bowden were uncompromising Unionists during the winter of 1860–1861. In the spring of 1862, after the Union army occupied Williamsburg and acquired responsibility for the patients in the Eastern Lunatic Asylum, Union officers appointed Henry Bowden clerk and steward of the institution and made Thomas Bowden collector of its pay-patient fund. With the withdrawal of the Union army later in the summer the Bowden family left Williamsburg, and the events of the Civil War made
Carter was born into slavery in or about 1816, probably in Chesterfield County and probably of mixed-race ancestry. The names of his parents are undocumented, and nothing is known about his life during slavery. After the Civil War he was described as a boot- and shoemaker, so it is possible that he received some training as a cobbler. Although the list of convention delegates compiled by Virginia’s military commander, Brigadier General John McAllister Schofield, states that Carter was illiterate, he managed to acquire enough education, either while a slave or after emancipation, to be able to sign his name, and comments he made on the floor of the Underwood Convention suggest that he could read as well.