1833 Land Purchases
1744 John Carter inherits both Shirley Plantation and Pampatike
1835 Thomas N Carter (grandson) purchases Goodwins Island. (Deep Water article)
It is my belief that he also purchased the strip of land from Piping Tree at this time. All records have been lost because of the 1885 King William Court house fire.
He gets remarried and sells his share of “Hickory Hill” for a lot of money. He clearly had a mission in mind to reclaim the land, and turns both the swamps around the Island and Piping Tree into reclaimed lands. It would make no business sense to embark upon such a tremendous investment as building the dikes without purchasing the land it is on. (see Hill Carter article on Shirley Swamp)