[1] Born at Cedar Grove plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia, to former American Revolutionary War officer Daniel McCarty, Jr. (1758–1801) and his wife Sarah Eilbeck Mason (1760–1823), the daughter of prominent planter and founding father George Mason; McCarty received a private education suitable to his class.
In 1838 the widower married Mary Burwell (1811-1892), who would survive him, and bear William Page McCarty, who became a Confederate States Army officer and newspaperman who became famous in his own right for killing John Mordecai in 1873 in a duel concerning a risque poem.
[7] After moving to Florida (although his resignation from his Virginia Senate seat was not recorded), McCarty identified with the Whig administration of the newly acquired territory.
In 1839, McCarty, won election to the United States House of Representatives in the Twenty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Charles F. Mercer.
In 1852, McCarty returned to his home state, sold Cedar Grove and moved to Richmond, Virginia, where he lived his final years.