Martha Patsy Parke Custis

Notes:

Eltham
Eltham was situated in New Kent County, Virginia. The property was owned by the Bassett family. Captain William Bassett was reportedly the first of the family to come to Virginia. He died in 1672 and was succeeded by his son, William Bassett, who died in 1673. This second William Bassett was a member of the Virginia Council. There was a third William Bassett, who inherited the place and was a member of the House of Burgesses. The son of the third Bassett, William Burwell, became owner of Eltham and also a Burgess.

The mansion was said to have been built as early at the 1660's. It was constructed of brick. The house was considered by many architects to have been one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the South.

The illustration of Eltham above was made from a drawing done by a member of the Bassett family. One description of the house reads, "There was a central portion of the house two-and-one-half stories high with dormer windows in the well-designed roof. Through passages on each side one reached the low wings to the house." Another description says, "The house presented an imposing front, one hundred and fifty feet from wing to wing; the entire building, with peaked roof and gable front, rising above them like the keep of a castle. Over the red English bricks of its walls, time and clinging tribes of lichens had thrown a soft tinting of purple and gray, while a stately avenue of Lombardy poplars led away from the mossy stone steps of the entrance, adding grandeur to the picturesqueness of the place. Many times during the siege of York were the leading spirits of the Revolution gathered at Eltham (which was not far from Yorktown) as guests of Colonel Burwell Bassett, who was a brother-in-law of General Washington and of Governor Harrison, having married the sister of Mrs. Washington [Anna Maria Dandridge; they married on May 2, 1757]."

One reason that there is interest in Eltham is that General and Mrs. Washington often visited the Bassets at Eltham, and Burwell Basset was one of the agents who had charge of Washington's business affairs while he was in command of the army during the American Revolution. In one of his letters to Bassett, written from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in February 1776, he says: "I thank you heartily for the attention you have kindly paid to my landed affairs on the Ohio; my interest in which I shall be more than ever careful of, as in the worst event they may serve for an asylum." This letter was owned by Herbert A. Claiborne of Richmond.

Another visitor of note was Andrew Burnaby, who wrote, "May 26, 1760. Having procured three horses, for myself, servant, and baggage, I departed from Williamsburg, and travelled that night to Eltham; twenty-five miles. . . . May 27. I ferried over Pamunky river . . . . " Burnaby wrote Travels Through North America, a popular book which went through three editions in the 1700's.

The Bassetts intermarried with many prominent Virginia families, including the Dandridges, the Lewises, the Claibornes, the Burwells and others. John Parke Custis, son of Martha Washington (and stepson of George Washington), died at Eltham, the home of his uncle. Martha and George adopted his two children. According to George Washington Parke Custis (John Parke Custis' biological son and George and Martha's adopted son), John Parke Custis "sickened while on duty as extra aide to the commander-in-chief in the trenches before Yorktown. Aware that his disease (the camp-fever), would be mortal, the sufferer had yet one last lingering wish to be gratified, and he would die content. It was to behold the surrender of the sword of Cornwallis. He was supported to the ground, and witnessed the admired spectacle, and was then removed to Eltham, a distance of thirty miles from camp."

The house burned in the 1870's, but the massive foundations could still be seen in the early 1900's.

The information in this article was compiled from information in Frances Archer Christian and Susanne Massie, editors, Homes and Gardens in Old Virginia, Garrett and Massie, Incorporated, Richmond, VA, 1931; Robert A. Lancaster, Jr., Historic Virginia Homes and Churches, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1915; Ella B. Washington, "The Harrisons in History," The Magazine of American History, 1889; Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, By His Adopted Son, George Washingto Parke Custis, with A Memoir of the Author, by His Daughter; and Illustrative and Explanatory Notes, by Benson J. Lossing, Derby & Jackson, New York, 1860.

John married Eleanor Calvert on 3 Feb 1774 in Mount Airy Plantation, Prince Georges, Maryland, USA. Eleanor (daughter of Benedict Swinegate Calvert and Elizabeth Butler Calvert) was born on 3 Feb 1754 in Mount Airy Plantation, Prince Georges, Maryland, USA; died on 28 Sep 1811 in Croom, Prince Georges, Maryland, USA; was buried in Croom, Prince Georges, Maryland, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1782, , Fairfax, Virginia, USA

Daniel married Martha Dandridge in 1749. Martha (daughter of John Dandridge and Frances Orlando Jones) was born on 21 Jun 1731 in Chestnut Grove, New Kent, Virginia, USA; died on 22 May 1802 in Mount Vernon, Fairfax, Virginia, USA; was buried in Mount Vernon, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

02 Jun 1731 - May 22 1802

First Lady, 30 Apr 1789 - 04 Mar 1797

On 31 Dec 1799, shortly after her husband's death, Martha Washing responded to the congressional request that he be buried in "Washington City," the new American capital. "I must consent to the request made by congress," she wrote, "...and in doing this I need not---I cannot say what a sacrifice of individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty." That principle governed her conduct throughout her 40-year marriage to George Washington. She was raised to be a southern belle and a plantation mistress. She delighted in domesticity, describing herself at Mt. Vernon as "fairly settled downn to the pleasant duties of an old fashioned Virginia house-keeper, steady as a clock, busy as a bee, and as cheerful as a cricket." Yet in the public interest she repeatedly left the home she loved to share with her husband the hardships, discomforts, and dangers of his winter headquarters during the seven years that the American Revolution dragged on. After that war both the Washingtons hoped to spend the rest of their lives in the tranquility of Mt. Vernon. But George Washington bowed to the public will that he serve as the nation's first president and Martha Washington moved with him to New York and then to Philadelphia. Willinly and almost without complaint, she endured her separation from the relative and friends she loved best to undertake the repososibilities of a "very dull life" in which she felt "more like a state prisoner than anything else."

Martha Dandridge was born at Chestnut Grove, a modest 500-acre plantation on the pamunkey River in New Kent County, VA, on 02 Jun 1731. Her father, John Dandridge, came to North America from England when he was at years old with his older brother William. Starting out as merchants, they both rapidly acquired land and status. Her mother, Frances Jones, was the granddaughter of an Oxford-educated Anglican rector. Like most well-off girls of her time, Martha was probably tuaght domestic arts and household management by her mother and the three Rs by her parents and grandparents, an itinerant tutor, or an indentured servant. She learned to dance, perhaps to play an instrument a little, and to ride horseback expertly. She attended church regularly. Her social life and her affections centered in her relations with her seven siblings and the gentry of the countryside. She was slim and petite, just under five feet tall, with brown hair and hazel eyes.

When Martha was 17, she attracted the attention of Daniel Parke Custis, like her father a vestryman in her church. The 39-year-old Custis was a man eager to marry but still under the thumb of his wealthy, eccentric, and irascible father. The elder Custis did not allow Daniel to manage and eventually own one of his estates, White House, until he was far into his maturity. No young woman, the father seemed to think, was worthy of his oly son---or, perhaps more important, of iheriting the considerable Custis fortune. Martha's marriage to Daniel was delayed until she was 19, when in a sudden about-face Custis snior declared he was "as much enamored with her character as you (Daniel) are with her person, and this is owing chiefly to a prudent speech of her own."

They were married at her home and settled down at White House to raise a family. Custis indulged his young bride with fine clothes ordered from London. In the next seven years she bore four babies, two boys and two girls. But the infant deaths so commonplace in the 18th century soon claimed the first two. In 1757 her husband died suddenly, leaving her with her two small children: Martha Parke "Patsy" Custis, born 1754; and John Parke "Jacky" custis, born in 1755. He also left her perhaps the wealthiest widow in Virginia.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: Illegitimate son of Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore and Melusina von der Schulenberg.

Benedict married Elizabeth Butler Calvert on 21 Apr 1748 in St. Anne's Episcopal Church, Church Circle, Annapolis, Maryland, USA. Elizabeth was born on 24 Feb 1730 in St Annes Parish, Prince Georges, Maryland, USA; died on 7 Jul 1798 in Mount Airy Plantation, Prince Georges, Maryland, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 2 Aug 1790, , Prince Georges, Maryland, USA

Notes:

Married:
Anne Arundel Circuit of The Methodist Episcopal Church, Anne Arundel, Maryland.

Notes:

John Custis (August 1678–after 14 November 1749) was a member of the Governor's Council in the British colony of Virginia. Often he is designated as John Custis IV or John Custis, of Williamsburg, to distinguish him from his grandfather, father, and other relatives of the same name. The son of John Custis (ca. 1654–1714) (usually designated John Custis III or John Custis, of Wilsonia), who was also a Council member, and Margaret Michael Custis, Custis was born in Northampton County, Virginia. On 4 May 1706 he married Frances Parke, the elder daughter and heiress of Daniel Parke, governor of the Leeward Islands.

Custis had moved to Williamsburg, Virginia by 1717. There he created a magnificent 4-acre (16,000 m2) garden and corresponded with many celebrated horticulturists and naturalists, including John Bartram, Mark Catesby, and Peter Collinson. Custis served on the governor's Council from 1727 until increasingly ill health forced him to request to be suspended in August 1749. In 1744, John Custis took the extraordinary step of petitioning the Governor and Council to set a slave child free. The petition stated the boy was "Christened John but commonly called Jack, born of the body of his Negro wench, Alice."[1]

He died soon after completing his will on 14 November 1749. At his request, he was buried on the Eastern Shore of Virginia at the Arlington plantation. In his will Custis instructed his son, on pain of being cut off with only one shilling, to place on his marble tomb the wording that Custis had "Yet lived but Seven years which was the Space of time he kept a Batchelors [sic] House at Arlington on the Eastern Shoar [sic] of Virginia. This Inscription put on this Stone by his own positive Orders."

His only surviving son, Daniel Parke Custis, was the first husband of Martha Washington.

References

Will in Prerogative Court of Canterbury Registered Wills, Searle 287, Principal Probate Registry, London, England.
Kneebone, John T., et al., eds. Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1998- ), 3:636-639. ISBN 0-88490-206-4.
Zuppan, Jo. "John Custis of Williamsburg, 1678-1749," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 90 (1982): 177-197.
Custis, John (2005) Zuppan, Josephine Little ed. The letterbook of John Custis IV of Williamsburg, 1717-1742 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ISBN 094561280X, 9780945612803 http://books.google.com/books?id=EkKUjMmxVS0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
^ Wiencek, Henry (2004). 'An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America', p. 73. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374529515

"John Custis’s marriage was famously miserable."
In an apocryphal story, he once drove a carriage bearing him and his wife Frances Parke right into the Chesapeake Bay. The following exchange is said to have taken place:

“Where are you going, Mr. Custis?” Frances asked, with the water swirling around them.

“To hell, madam.” Came the reply.

“Drive on,” said Frances, “any place is better than Arlington.”

Source: Wiencek, Henry. An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. Farrar, New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, pg. 72.

John married Frances Custis. Frances was born in 1687 in Williamsburg, Independent Cities, Virginia, USA; died on 14 Mar 1714 in Williamsburg, Independent Cities, Virginia, USA; was buried in Williamsburg, Independent Cities, Virginia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Frances Orlando Jones. Frances was born on 6 Aug 1710 in St Peters Parish, New Kent, Virginia, USA; died on 9 Apr 1785 in New Kent, New Kent, Virginia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Lord married Petronilla Melusina Von Der Schulenberg, Countess of Walsingham. Petronilla was born on 13 Apr 1693 in Ramstedt, Schleswig Holstein, Germany; died on 16 Sep 1778 in Isleworth, London Borough of Hounslow, Greater London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Petronilla Melusine von der Schulenburg, Countess of Walsingham (1 April 1693 – 16 September 1778) was the natural daughter of King George I of Great Britain and his longtime mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal.

In 1722, Melusina was created Baroness Aldborough and Countess of Walsingham as a life peer.

In Isleworth, Middlesex, on 5 September 1733 she married Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, a leading Whig politician.

The couple had no children, but it is possible that she may have been the mother, through an intimacy with Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, of Benedict Swingate Calvert. Calvert was born in England in around 1730-32, the illegitimate son of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore. His mother's identity is not completely clear but some sources suggest that she was Melusina von der Schulenburg.

Col married Margaret Michael. Margaret was born in 1658 in , Accomack, Virginia, USA; died on 29 March 1697 in , Northampton, Virginia, USA; was buried in Cashville, Accomack, Virginia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He was the second sone of Charle Calvert, and became his father's heir upon the death of his elder borther, Cecil in 1681.

He married Lady Charlotte Lee, daughter of the 1st Earl of Lichfield by his wife the former Lady Charlotte FitzRoy, the illegitimate daughter of King Charles II. They had seven children.

His great-granddaughter Eleanor Calvert Custis was the grandmother of Mary Anna custis Lee the wife of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Benedict married Charlotte Lee on 2 Jun 1698. Charlotte (daughter of Edward Henry Lee and Charlotte Fitzroy) was born on 13 Mar 1678 in St James Palace, London, England; died on 22 Jan 1721 in St James Palace, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Charlotte Lee, Lady Baltimore
Born 13 March 1678 (Old Style); 23 March 1678 (New Style)
St. James's Park, St. James, London, England
Died 22 January 1721 (Old Style); 1 February 1721 (New Style)
Woodford Hall, Woodford, Essex, England
Spouse(s)Benedict Leonard Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore, Christopher Crowe
Issue
Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore
Hon. Benedict Leonard Calvert, Governor of Maryland
Hon. Edward Henry Calvert
Hon. Charlotte Calvert
Hon. Jane Calvert
Hon. Cecil Calvert
Christopher Crowe
Catherine Crowe
Charlotte Crowe
George Crowe
Father
Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield
Mother
Lady Charlotte Fitzroy
ReligionAnglican
Charlotte Lee, Lady Baltimore (13 March 1678 Old Style – 22 January 1721 Old Style), was an English noblewoman, and granddaughter of King Charles II of England and his mistress Barbara Villiers. She married in 1699, Benedict Leonard Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore, from whom she separated in 1705; she later married Christopher Crowe. She was the mother of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, and of Benedict Leonard Calvert, who was Governor of Maryland from 1727–1731.

Early life
Lady Charlotte Lee was born on 13 March 1678 at St. James's Park, St. James, London.[2] She was the eldest of at least fourteen children of Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield (4 February 1663 – 14 July 1716) and Lady Charlotte Fitzroy (5 September 1664 – 17 February 1718), illegitimate daughter of King Charles II by his mistress Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland. Lady Charlotte's mother was fourteen years old at the time of her birth, having married the Earl of Lichfield at the age of thirteen. Her father was also only fifteen at the time of her birth. Her paternal grandparents were Sir Francis Henry Lee of Ditchley, 4th Baronet of Quarendon and Elizabeth Pope, daughter of Thomas Pope, 2nd Earl of Downe.

Marriage to Lord Baltimore
Charlotte Lee's first husband, Benedict Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore
On 2 January 1699, at the age of twenty, she married her first husband Benedict Leonard Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore (21 March 1679 – 16 April 1715), son of Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and Jane Lowe. Charlotte assumed the title of Lady Baltimore in February 1715, when her husband succeeded to the title of 4th Baron Baltimore upon the death of his father, the third Baron. The title of Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland had been lost to the third Baron during the Glorious Revolution and would be restored to Charles Calvert, the son of Charlotte and Benedict, upon the latter's death on 16 April 1715.

Charlotte and Lord Baltimore had six children:

Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, 18th Proprietor Governor of Maryland, FRS (29 September 1699 – 24 April 1751), married Mary Janssen, daughter of Sir Theodore Janssen, 1st Baronet Janssen and Williamsa Henley,[4] by whom he had three children, including Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, Louisa Calvert, and Caroline Calvert. He also had an illegitimate son, by the name of Benedict Swingate Calvert, who settled in Maryland, and married Elizabeth Calvert, by whom he had issue.

Hon. Benedict Leonard Calvert, Governor of Maryland, (1727–1731). He died 1 June 1732 on his passage home to England.

Hon. Edward Henry Calvert (born ca. 1700), held office of Commissary General and President of the council of Maryland, was married without issue.

Hon. Charlotte Calvert (died December 1744), married Thomas Breerwood, by whom she had a son, Francis Breerwood.

Hon. Jane Calvert (died July 1778), married John Hyde, by whom she had issue John Hyde, Henry Hyde and Mary Calvert Hyde, wife of George Mitchell and mother of George Calvert Mitchell, 1st Earl of Royalton.

Hon. Cecil Calvert (born 1702)
Charlotte and Lord Baltimore were divorced in 1705. Charlotte had an affair in 1706 with Colonel Robert Fielding, then the (bigamous) husband of her grandmother the Duchess of Cleveland, and was rumoured to have borne a child by him, born 23 April 1707.

Marriage to Christopher Crowe
She married her second husband Christopher Crowe (c.1681 – 9 November 1749), Consul at Leghorn, sometime before 10 December 1719. Charlotte was three years older than her husband. This marriage produced four more children.

Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, was the eldest son of Charlotte Lee and her first husband, Benedict Leonard Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore.

Charlotte's four children from her second marriage:
Christopher Crowe (1716–1776), married Barbara Duncombe
Catherine Crowe (1717 – ?), married Roger Henry Gale
Charlotte Crowe (1718–1742)
George Crowe (25 November 1719 – 10 October 1782), married Anne Swift, by whom he had a son Robert.

Death and legacy
Charlotte Lee died of rheumatism on 22 January 1721 at Woodford Hall, Woodford, Essex. She was buried at Woodford on 29 January 1721. She died intestate and her estate was administered on 4 March 1721 at Woodford Hall.

Ancestors of Charlotte Lee, Lady Baltimore:
Sir Henry Lee, 1st Baronet
Francis Henry Lee, 2nd Baronet
Eleanor Wortley
Sir Francis Henry Lee, 4th Baronet of Quarendon
Sir John St. John, 1st Baronet
Anne St. John
Anne Leighton
Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield
Sir William Pope
Thomas Pope, 2nd Earl of Downe
Elizabeth Watson
Elizabeth Pope
John Dutton
Lucy Dutton
Elizabeth Baynton
Charlotte Lee
James I of England
Charles I of England
Anne of Denmark
Charles II of England
Henri IV of France
Henrietta Maria of France
Marie de Medici
Lady Charlotte Fitzroy
Sir Edward Villiers
William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison
Barbara St. John
Barbara Villiers
Paul Bayning, 1st Viscount Bayning
Mary Bayning
Anne Glemham

Notes:

John was born in 1629 at Rotterdam, Holland. He arrived in Virginia in 1651/2 and in the early 1670's built Arlington Mansion on the south shore of Old Plantation Creek in Northampton County.

In 1676 during Bacon's Rebellion, Virginia's royal governor William Berkeley fled from the capital at Jamestown, taking refuge temporarily with John Custis II. Thus, for a short while Arlington was the capital of the Virginia Colony.

He married Tabitha Scarburgh, daughter of Col. Edmund Scarburgh (II) and Mary Cade, after 1675.

He made a will on 18 March 1691 at Northampton Co, VA. John died on 29 Jan 1696. John's will was probated on 10 Feb 1695/96 at Northampton Co, VA.

1. Ralph T Whitelaw, Virginia's Eastern Shore (A History of Northampton and Accomack Counties), p. 971 (A83 - Deep Creek Plantation.

2. James R Revell Sr, Descendants of Randall Revell of the Eastern Shore, Custis Family Lineage Appendix.

3. Virginia M Meyer & John Frederick Dorman, Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607-1624/5.

4. Cynthia McDaniel, to M K Miles.

5. Inc. Arlington Foundation, Custis Genealogy Chart.

6. James Handley Marshall, Northampton Co, VA, Abstracts of Wills & Administrations, 1632-1802, p 151 (will of John Custis, Esq, wife Tabitha).

Major General John Custis (Jr)
John Custis II (Jr) was the founder of the Custis family of Virginia (i.e., progenator of Martha Washington's 1st husband Daniel Custus and Robert E Lee, among others). He was raised in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and moved to Virginia's Eastern Shore in 1649/50. Custis became wealthy through land speculation, tobacco planting, and facilitating trade between Virginia, the Netherlands and its colonies (i.e., New Amsterdam/York). Early in the 1670s Custis built a mansion in Northhampton County and named it Arlington; the house was the namesake of Arlington House, the nineteenth-century home of the Washington and Custis families. During Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), John Custis II supported Governor Sir William Berkeley, resulting in his appointment in 1677 to the Virginia Royal Governor's Council. John retired his post in 1692 and died in 1696.

John Custis II may have been born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, about 1629. He was the son of Johanna Wittingham Custis and Henry Custis, a native of Gloucestershire, England who operated a Rotterdam victualling house, or tavern which served as the hub of the city's English expatriate community. Custis's father was a member of an extended family that was engaged in international commerce, and it is possible that as a young man Custis worked in one of the family's commercial houses. About 1649/50 John II moved to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where his sister Ann (Custis) Yeardley already lived with her husband Argall Yeardley, the son of Virginia's then Royal Governor, Sir Geore Yeardley. John was a prominent planter and became a member of the governor's Council. Several other members of the Custis family also lived on the Eastern Shores of Virginia and Maryland, including another John Custis, who was probably an uncle or cousin, causing troubles of being misidentified as the father of the immigrant founder of the Custis family of Virginia.

Rise to Power and Military Career

With his family's trading connections and his brother-in-law's help, John Custis II grew wealthy. By 1664, he had accumulated more than 1,000 acres of land, and gained an additional 10,000 acres during the next quarter century. The Custis workforce of servants and slaves soon grew into one of the largest on the Eastern Shore. His commercial activities centered on New Amsterdam, a logical trading destination for a man with his background. He assembled cargoes of tobacco for shipment to the Dutch colony and acted as the Virginia agent for merchants from New Netherland and Rotterdam, as well as New England. Custis's facility in the Dutch language enhanced his value as an intermediary in international commerce. In 1663, when Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New Netherland, corresponded with the Royal Governor of Virginia on an important admiralty matter, Virginia officials relied on Custis to translate the documents.

Sometime before January 15, 1652, John Custis married a widow, Elizabeth (Robinson) Eyer (or Eyre). She died when their only son, John Custis III (1654–1714), was still an infant. This son would also serve on the Virginia Governor's Council.

About 1656 John Custis II/Jr married the thrice-widowed Alicia Travellor Burdett Walker (whose maiden name is unknown). In about 1679, he married the twice-(thrice?) widowed Tabitha Scarburgh Smart Browne Hill(?), a daughter of Edmund Scarburgh (d. 1671). Tabitha's father, Edmund Scarborgh was one of the Eastern Shore's leading planters and a former Speaker of the House of Burgesses. Custis and his second and third wives had no children who grew to adulthood.

Early in the 1670s John Custis II/Jr built a three-story brick mansion on the south bank of Old Plantation Creek, in southwestern Northampton County. He named the house Arlington, probably after the Custis family's ancestral village in Gloucestershire. With a foundation measuring fifty-four feet by forty-three-and-a-half feet, the imposing double-pile structure was perhaps the finest mansion erected in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake, rivaled only by Governor Sir William Berkeley's home Green Spring near Jamestown. Early in the nineteenth century, the name of the mansion inspired Custis's descendant George Washington Parke Custis, to give the same name to his estate outside Washington, D.C.

Custis's lordly surroundings and imperious manner, which involved him in several disputes with his neighbors, earned him the sobriquet "King Custis". As his wealth grew, so did his political power. During the 1650s, before he became a legal denizen of the colony, he held such offices as surveyor and appraiser of estates. Although nominated for sheriff in 1655, Custis did not receive the appointment because of his foreign birth. The assembly removed that obstacle to political advancement in 1658 by passing a law naturalizing him and his brother William Custis. Following, in 1659, John Custis II became the county sheriff, and the following year the governor appointed him to the Northampton County Court. Except for another term as sheriff in 1665 and 1666, he remained a justice of the peace until 1677.

Custis became a Captain in the Northampton County militia in 1664. He was commissioned a Colonel in 1673, and ended his career in 1692 as Commander in Chief of all forces on the Eastern Shore. During Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, he was a Major General in Governor Sir William Berkeley's army. When Governor Berkeley fled Jamestown and took refuge on the Eastern Shore, he made Custis's Arlington his temporary headquarters. Custis's loyalty to the government won plaudits from two of the commissioners King Charles subsequently sent to investigate the rebellion. Sir John Berry praised Custis's courage and generous offer to lend the Crown £1,000 sterling to provision the king's ships, and Francis Moryson once addressed him as "Honest Jack."

Later Years

Custis probably won election to the House of Burgesses in the spring of 1676 when the rebellion broke out, but the sparse surviving records of the assembly session that met in June of that year do not include his name. He was present at the next session, which met at Green Spring in February 1677, after the conclusion of the rebellion. On an unrecorded date before July 5 of that year, the Virginia Lieutenant Governor appointed Custis to the Council. As a councillor he often sat as an additional member of the Accomack and Northampton County Courts. Rumors that Custis was dead or dying resulted in the Privy Council omitting his name from the list of Council members when Francis Howard, i.e., baron Howard of Effingham, was appointed governor in October 1683. Custis petitioned the Crown for reinstatement in 1685 and continued to serve until "Extreame violent Sicknesses," "Extreame fitts," and "the faileing of his Memory and hearing" forced him to retire on April 15, 1692.

Custis achieved dynastic as well as financial and political success. He established a family that remained prominent in Virginia for two centuries. When he prepared his will in 1691, he provided handsomely for his grandson John Custis IV (1678–1749), who later became the third man of that name to serve on the governor's Council. Custis died, almost certainly at Arlington in Northampton County, on January 29, 1696, and was buried near his mansion.

Arlington Plantation, John Custis II (1629-1696)
Along the south shore of the Old Plantation Creek inlet where it converges with the Chesapeake Bay close to what is now the quaint little town of Cape Charles, Arlington Plantation was founded on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. This special site is one of the most historic properties in our nation, yet its significance is little known. For many centuries this area was inhabited by native American Indians, until occupation by English settlers of this site and the area up to the Kings Creek inlet three miles north, Sir Thomas Dale established the first permanent settlement of English colonists on the Eastern Shore in 1617 known as Dale’s Gift. Here, half a century later, a plantation was founded by John Custis II, whose prosperity was demonstrated by the construction of the most magnificent mansion on the whole of the Chesapeake Bay. Apparently he named the plantation in honor of his family’s benefactor, Lord Arlington, although the name was possibly derived from the English village Arlington-Bibury, home to the first generation of the Custis family. More than three hundred fifty years after Arlington mansion first rose high above the waters of Old Plantation Creek, the name itself still lives on, engrained in the minds of all Americans as the land upon which thousands of American soldiers rest eternally, Arlington National Cemetary.

National recognition of the Custis name began when, in 1759, the widow of John Custis IV’s son Daniel, Martha Dandridge Custis and the heir to Arlington Plantation, married army Colonel George Washington when he was only twenty-six years old. As was the custom of the times, on his way to becoming the father of our country, Washington managed the affairs of his wife’s property here on the Eastern Shore. And in the paradoxical twists and turns of history, Martha’s great-granddaughter, Mary A. R. Custis to whom both Arlington estates passed, married another young Army officer, who would become, like George Washington, an icon of the American story. It is indeed ironic that Robert E. Lee would take reluctant command of the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia which strived to split the nation that was hardwon by his wife’s legendary ancestor, its first President. And so the prestigeous Custis family, which founded Arlington Plantation on the Eastern Shore and Arlington Plantation on the Potomac River, links George Washington, the Revolutionary War and the founding of our nation with Robert E. Lee, the Civil War and the near destruction of the nation.

The name of the Custis family ancestral plantation, Arlington, lives on today in the American consciousness despite the destruction of its mansion more than two-hundred fifty years ago. In the early part of the nineteenth century, Martha’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis, who was adopted by General Washington and his wife as their son, built a mansion near Mt. Vernon overlooking the Potomac River. He called it ”Arlington” after the first Custis home on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the vast lands surrounding his mansion became the National Cometary after the Civil War. The Arlington mansion on the Eastern Shore was abandoned sometime during the early part of the 18th century. Its ruins were pilaged and what was left eventually became buried in the farm fields surrounding its site, the only evidence of its grandeur that remained were the prominent tombs of John Custis II and his grandson, John Custis IV.

During the spring of 1987, an archeological survey of the Arlington plantation site near the Custis Tombs revealed sections of a brick foundation for a very large structure that was covered by a foot of soil plowed over a hundred years of farming activity. During 1994, an intensive archeological investigation of the cellars of the mansion was conducted. Eye witness accounts of the mansion dating from 1709 offer brief glimpses of its size, elevations and orientation to the Chesapeake Bay. As well, the beautifully preserved historic records in Northampton County courthouse provide additional sources of information about Arlington. A 1688 reference about a visit to the house in a lawsuit filed that year, is one of the first mentions of a separate dining room in an early Colonial home in Virginia. This annecdote substantiates the archaeological findings at Arlington which determined the house to be the most architecturally sophisticated house of that period, at least fifty years ahead of its time.

Such a large home, built of brick masonry, required laborers and materials and facilities for making the bricks. It is believed that the kilns for firing the newly made bricks are located 3/8 mile south of the ruins on a 15 acre tract of land that contains a modern two bedroom home and barn with horse stable. Behind the home, hidden in the forest and covered with the detritus of fallen leaves, vines and dirt are piles of old and crumbling bricks. That site is at the head of a shallow tidal pond that probably provided the water necessary for mixing the brick clay.

Arlington Plantation on the Eastern Shore, John Custis II
Posted 30 Jan 2023 by John Moore
An enigmatic sign along U.S. 13 near Kiptopeke says "Custis Tombs" and points to the west. After 25 years of wondering about it, curiosity finally won out. I turned onto Arlington Road.

A short distance later, Arlington made a sharp left, and I stayed straight onto Custis Tomb Drive, although not without some misgiving. It appears to be a driveway straight to a large yellow house, but the road, in fact, curves right around behind the house and keeps going for a few miles.

In 1891 a writer for The New York Times drove down this way to see the Custis Tombs.

What was written then still holds true, and I quote: "It does not seem possible that a hundred years ago this was a great plantation with a commerce of its own, but gradually the sites upon which large buildings rested are pointed out, although no sign of them is seen."

Today there is an unpaved parking lot outlined with tar-spattered poles laying on their sides, and a lot of grass. So much grass that it lay like hay on the path that had been mowed through the field to allow access to... a slightly greener patch of grass.

At this spot along Old Plantation Creek was "the most architecturally sophisticated house of the time," according to an archaeological report about the site, written for the owner, Preservation Virginia. The foundation lines of Arlington, a three-story house built circa 1670, stood out pale green against the hay, and upright poles marked the corners.

Some interpretive signs described the now-vanished house, which was built by John Custis II. A member of the Governor's Council, Custis offered refuge to Gov. William Berkeley, who was driven from the colonial capital of Williamsburg in 1676 by Bacon's Rebellion.

Supported by other Eastern Shore residents, Berkeley fought back and captured the rebel fleet that had come after him and resumed power.

"The clash at Arlington proved to be the decisive turning point of the rebellion," the archaeologists wrote.

When John Custis II died, the house went to his grandson, John Custis IV. The house was described by contemporaries as having "a handsome garden and fine orchard" as well as two cellars with plastered walls, brick floors and vaulted ceilings, along with at least three chimneys, three levels and garrets.

Arlington prospered until John IV moved to Williamsburg sometime between 1714 and 1721. The house dwindled away until now all that remains is a few bricks and some interpretive signs.

A box with a sign reading "Please Take One" was empty, so the meaning of small numbered posts around the site remained elusive.

If you're thinking that you've heard the names Custis and Arlington before, you have. John Custis IV was Martha Custis Washington's first father-in-law. After her first husband's death, she married George Washington.

Martha's grandson built a fine house on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., which he named Arlington House after the Eastern Shore site. Today, it is the site of Arlington National Cemetery.

The family plot on the edge of Old Plantation Creek is much smaller. Surrounded by a brick wall and shaded by trees, it contains two tombs.

The smaller one belongs to John Custis II. The larger one belongs to John Custis IV, and on one side is inscribed, "Aged 71 years and yet liv'd but seven years which was the space of time he kept a bachelors house at Arlington on the Eastern Shore of Virginia."

John married Elizabeth Custis. Elizabeth was born in 1637 in Plemonstall, Cheshire, England; died in 1656 in , Accomack, Virginia, USA; was buried in Eastville, Northampton, Virginia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edward married Charlotte Fitzroy in 1676. Charlotte (daughter of Charles II King of England and Barbara Villiers) was born on 5 Sep 1664 in London, London, England; died on 17 Feb 1718 in Westminster, Middlesex, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]