[3] After marrying Elizabeth Carter of Middlesex County the year of his father's death, the elder Nathaniel Burwell established a home at Fairfield across the York River in 1709.
[5] Although the elder Nathaniel's widow remarried well, to Dr. George Nicholas (1685—1734), who helped raise her two sons and two daughters, her wealthy father Robert "King" Carter (1663—1732) purchased approximately 1,400 acres (570 ha) in Martin's Hundred at the eastern end of James City County and bought African slaves to work the new plantation.
[7] Not only did the younger son Carter Burwell turn his somewhat smaller inheritance from his maternal grandfather (and guardian until his death) into a profitable plantation (still using enslaved labor) upon reaching legal age and assuming control from the successor guardian, he also followed his father political career as one of James City County's delegates to the House of Burgesses in 1742—1747, 1748—1749 and 1751—1755 (alongside Benjamin Waller after his cousin Lewis died in 1744),[8] and built the historic house (now part of Colonial Williamsburg and the National Register of Historic Places) where this Nathaniel was born.
[10] Following another family tradition, not long after taking full control of the various inherited plantations, Nathaniel Burwell married Susanna Grymes (1752—1788) on November 28, 1772.
[13] Six years later in 1788, James City County voters elected Burwell and Robert Andrews to represent them in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, concerning the proposed Federal Constitution.
Initially, he had only visited the semi-mountain area in the summers, but with the assistance of neighbor and former Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan began erecting a permanent residence in 1790.
[18] Meanwhile, guardian William Nelson had (in addition to hiring out some slaves), switched farming strategies from tobacco (which tended to make land infertile after several years, although it accounted for half of plantation revenues in the 1760s) to products for the expanding Williamsburg market, including corn, wheat and livestock (for meat and butter), and processing cider and cutting firewood.
This prudent management strategy (unusual for a nonresident owner) raised gross revenues per hand from about £12 in the early 1760s to £18 by the time Nathaniel reached legal age in 1771, higher returns than most large planters had achieved in the 1750s.
[21] During the revolutionary war years, Burwell hauled surplus wool to Frederick county for sale, but his primary market was Williamsburg, where he sold meat, flour, fodder, cider, butter and milk.
He also used his excess bran from the mill to feed hogs, and traded in whiskey (from his new distillery in Frederick county as West Indian rum grew difficult to procure) and firewood, both in great demand.
[25] When the state capitol moved to Richmond in 1780, sales of Burwell's butter, wool and fodder declined precipitously, although the Continental Army's and French military's demands for supplies during the final campaign at Yorktown helped offset those losses.
[35] He served as one its justices of the peace at various times, as well as its joint delegate in the Virginia General Assembly with neighboring Warren County (which the Castleman family dominated politically).
His widow remarried but her next husband and a series of administrators ran through those assets, such that the remaining Carter Grove bondspeople were soon hired out or sold, and that property left the Burwell family in 1838.
He also had a dozen children, including Private Nathaniel Burwell (1838—1862), who died that fall of wounds incurred fighting for the Confederacy in the Stonewall Brigade at the Second Battle of Bull Run.