[1][2] The son and principal heir of Landon Carter (who represented Richmond County part-time in the House of Burgesses for more than a decade and then became a leading advocate of independence before his death in 1778) and his first wife, the former Elizabeth Wormeley (1713-1740) was born at his father's seat, Sabine Hall, into the First Families of Virginia.
A third daughter, Frances W. ("Fanny") Carter (1760-1850) married Ludwell Lee, a Virginia lawyer, planter and multi-term legislator who lived in Alexandria then Loudoun County.
Robert Wormeley Carter was groomed to take control of his father's extensive plantations, which were in eight counties by the time of the old Colonel's death, and all operated using enslaved labor.
[10] This man's drinking, gambling, and other financial extravagances also troubled the colonel, who threatened to disinherit Robin if he left Sabine Hall.
Four years earlier, he joined in Richard Henry Lee's Westmoreland Association against the Stamp Tax, although his father (who corresponded with Lee) refused to sign, because Landon Carter still trusted the British monarch, and at that point would only foster the patriotic movement by meeting with a dissident Tappahannock merchant and urging him to comply to avoid a mobbing.
[15] 1769 also marked the first time that Richmond County voters elected Robert Wormeley Carter as one of their representatives in the House of Burgesses.
Voters continued to re-elect him and neighbor (and fellow planter) Francis Lightfoot Lee, including after Lord Dunmore suppressed the Virginia General Assembly in 1775.
[17] One historian notes that in 1775 members of a nearby parish (North Farnham) petitioned for dissolution of its vestry as overly related by marriage or consanguinity, which might have led to the election of the pair of men outside that kinship network in this county, although Francis Lightfoot Lee would soon begin service in the Continental Congress.
[18][19] In the 1787 state tax census, Robert Wormeley Carter paid taxes on 80 enslaved laborers and 86 enslaved children in Richmond County (alone), as well as 26 horses, 180 other livestock and two post chaises, as well as for his son Landon, and probable overseers Griffin G. Berrick, Robert Reynolds and Henry Sisson.