William Mason McCarty (ca. 1789 – December 20, 1863) was a Virginia lawyer, plantation owner, and politician who served in theUnited States House of Representatives andVirginia Senate, as well as Secretary of the Florida territory andActing Governor in the absence of Territorial GovernorWilliam Pope Duval.^[1]

Born at Cedar Groveplantation inFairfax County, Virginia, to formerAmerican Revolutionary War officer Daniel McCarty, Jr. (1758–1801) and his wife Sarah Eilbeck Mason (1760–1823), the daughter of prominent planter and founding fatherGeorge Mason; McCarty received a private education suitable to his class. He had five siblings: his brother Daniel McCarty III would marry and settle on his wife's estates inCharles County, Maryland, his brother John Mason McCarty, a member of theVirginia House of Delegates, killed his relative Armistead Thomson Mason in a duel in 1817, after which he married and also moved to Charles County, Maryland, and his sister Ann Eilbeck Mason McCarty married John William Bronaugh. Despite theWar of 1812, William M. McCarty studied law at theCollege of William and Mary inWilliamsburg, Virginia, in 1813 and 1814.^[2][3]

McCarty married twice. In 1816 he married Emily Rutger Mason (1796-1835), a distant relative and the daughter of Virginia politician and U.S. SenatorStevens Thomson Mason, at her father's plantation,Raspberry Plain inLoudoun County, Virginia. In 1838 the widower married Mary Burwell (1811-1892), who would survive him, and bear William Page McCarty, who became aConfederate 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.

Admitted to the Virginia bar, McCarty began a private legal practice in northern Virginia. He lived at his father's plantation, which he inherited. He owned 7 enslaved people in the 1830 census,^[4] 21 enslaved people in 1840,^[5] and ten enslaved people in 1850, half of them eleven years old or younger.^[6]

In 1823, voters in Fairfax and Loudoun counties first elected McCarty to theVirginia senate, a part-time position.^[7] After moving to Florida (although his resignation from his Virginia Senate seat was not recorded), McCarty identified with theWhig administration of the newly acquired territory. PresidentJohn Quincy Adams in 1826 appointed McCarty as secretary of theTerritory of Florida, following the resignation ofGeorge Walton. McCarty also briefly served as the territory's Governor after the Governor resigned in late 1826.^[8]

Returning to Virginia in 1830, McCarty resumed his legal practice. Furthermore, voters in Fairfax and Loudoun counties again elected (and twice re-elected) him to represent them in the state Senate (1830–1839). In 1839, McCarty, won election to theUnited States House of Representatives in theTwenty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation ofCharles F. Mercer. Thus he represented Virginia's 14th congressional district from January 25, 1840 to March 4, 1841.

In 1852, McCarty returned to his home state, sold Cedar Grove and moved toRichmond, Virginia, where he lived his final years. As theAmerican Civil War broke out, he aligned with theConfederacy and his youngest son volunteered and became a Confederate officer.

Although his son survived the conflict, McCarty died on December 20, 1863. He was interred in Shockoe Hill Cemetery, where his widow would join him nearly two decades later. Although Raspberry Plain, where he married his first wife, survives today and hosts various events, the McCarthy Cedar Grove plantation did not survive until the modern era, but is now part of theAccotink Bay Wildlife Refuge withinFort Belvoir.^[9]

• United States Congress."William M. McCarty (id: M000322)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

 This article incorporatespublic domain material fromBiographical Directory of the United States Congress.Federal government of the United States.

• 1780s births
• 1863 deaths
• Mason family
• Virginia lawyers
• Whig Party United States representatives from Virginia
• 19th-century United States representatives
• 19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly

• Articles with short description
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• Use mdy dates from January 2019
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress