Peter Carteret

Peter Carteret (1641- )

Peter Carteret is still remembered on signs at Colington Island

This article appeared in the second volume of A Dictionary of Jersey Biography, having been overlooked for Volume One

Peter Carteret, secretary, council member and assistant to the Governor for the North Carolina Colony, USA, was the son of Helier, Attorney-General of Jersey and Rachel, nee La Cloche. He was born in St Peter in 1641.

Family connections

The family had close connections with the American colonies as Sir George Carteret was a fourth cousin. In 1665 Philippe de Carteret, Peter's elder brother, was appointed first Governor of New Jersey and crossed the Atlantic accompanied by a number of Jersey colonists.

Peter, who like his more famous cousin, dropped the prefix 'de' from his name, was appointed secretary, council member and assistant to the Governor of North Carolina, then called Albermarle, on 3 December 1664, and arrived there on 23 February following. In 1668 he was appointed Lieut-Colonel of the Albermarle Militia and on 17 January 1670, under the recently adopted Fundamental Constitutions, Sir George Carteret confirmed his earlier appointments and appointed him his deputy for Albermarle.

On 10 March 1670 the Albermarle Council appointed Peter Carteret Governor, in succession to Samuel Stephens, who had died, and his appointment was confirmed by the Proprietors.

In addition to the governorship, Carteret was agent for four of the proprietors, including Sir George, who had launched a business venture in the colony. Colington (then Colleton) Island, and part of the adjacent mainland, formed a plantation on which they hoped to produce wine and whale oil for export to England and horses for Barbados, in addition to the principal crops of corn, tobacco, hogs and cattle.

Carteret found the plantation hardly started; labourers were lacking, livestock and supplies had not arrived, hurricanes destroyed buildings and fences, droughts, floods and storms destroyed crops, disease and vermin killed livestock and epidemics struck the work force. The project was inadequately financed and Carteret advanced money of his own for running expenses.

Colonists' discontent

The colonists, borne down by these disasters and discontent with the Fundamental Constitutions, which they considered impractical, if not ruinous, were pacified by Carteret's sympathetic attitude and in the spring of 1672 the Albermarle Council resolved to send him to London to 'treate with the Lords' as agent of the people of Albermarle. He sailed in early summer, but on reaching London he found that the Proprietors had lost interest in the colony and were negotiating an exchange of territory with Sir William Barkeley.

Carteret hoped to return, either in his official capacity or in connection with the Colington Island Plantation, which he proposed should be handed over to him in settlement of the debt of more than £300, which was owing to him for expenditure out of his own pocket. By November 1676 he had apparently given up all hope of return as he gave power of attorney over his ALbermarle affairs to WIlliam Crawford, who had been his assistant in managing the plantation.

Nothing more is known of him.