George Washington Parke Custis - Family

Family

George Washington Parke Custis's mother, Eleanor Calvert Custis Stuart, descended from Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and of Henry Lee of Ditchley. His father, John Parke Custis, was the son of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington through her marriage to Daniel Parke Custis. Martha and George Washington raised John Parke Custis at Mount Vernon after Martha was widowed and married Washington.

George Washington Parke Custis was born on April 30, 1781, at his mother's family home at Mount Airy, whose restored mansion is now in Rosaryville State Park in Prince George's County, Maryland. He initially lived with his parents and sisters, Elizabeth Parke Custis, Martha Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (Nelly Custis), at the Abingdon Plantation (partially now at Ronald Reagan National Airport), which his father had purchased in 1778. However, six months after Custis was born, his father died of "camp fever" at Yorktown, shortly after the British army surrendered there. George and Martha Washington then brought Custis and Eleanor to their home at Mount Vernon. George Washington adopted his step-grandson as his son. Custis' two oldest sisters, Elizabeth and Martha, remained at Abingdon with their widowed mother, who in 1783 married Dr. David Stuart, an Alexandria physician who was an associate of George Washington. The Stuarts subsequently had 16 children while living at Abingdon, Hope Park and Ossian Hall in Northern Virginia.