Henry Carter Stuart (January 18, 1855July 24, 1933) was an American businessman and politician from Virginia. Between 1914 and 1918, he served as the 47th Governor of Virginia, a period which encompassed World War I. Early and family life The eldest of seven sons born to William Alexander Stuart (1826–1892) and his wife Mary Taylor Carter Stuart (1831–1862), Henry Carter Stuart was born in Wytheville, Virginia. He also had an elder sister, Eliza, who died in 1862. The family owned thousands of acres of ranch land in southwest Virginia, built over generations, including through marriage alliances. Henry Carter Stuart ultimately lived at East Rosedale, a mansion which a maternal ancestor had purchased from Patrick Henry in 1774, and which had been a fort guarding the Clinch River valley during the American Revolutionary War. His paternal grandfather, Archibald Stuart, a lawyer and U.S. Congressman, had several sons, one of whom (Henry's uncle) became Confederate Civil War Cavalry Commander Jeb Stuart. A graduate of Emory and Henry College (1874), Henry married his cousin, Margaret Bruce Carter in 1896, but they had no children. His nephew of the same name, but nicknamed Harry Carter Stuart (1893-1963), son of this Stuart's brother and business partner Dale Carter Stuart, later became a Virginia State Senator and was active in the Massive Resistance movement. Career Stuart was born to wealth, and became wealthier. Upon their father's death in 1893, he and his brothers Alexander ("Zan") and Dale Carter Stuart took over their father's salt company (which by then had become a cattle company). They built Stuart Land & Cattle into the largest cattle company east of the Mississippi River, with 50,000 agricultural acres in four counties. Generations of fathers and sons worked for the company, and many lived in its semi-feudal company towns which attempted to control their access to liquor. The cattle company and other Stuart enterprises also controlled extensive coal and timber reserves. Ironically, Henry Stuart's only child, Mary Fulton, rebelled against her father's country lifestyle and values. Stuart started his political activity in 1893, after their father's death. He organizing a statewide referendum for popular election of senators because his favorite candidate, Fitzhugh Lee (former governor and a grandson of Robert E. Lee) had not been selected for U.S. Senate from Virginia by the Virginia General Assembly, which instead elevated an obscure railroad attorney, Thomas Staples Martin. Over the years, Stuart became more