Colonel Daniel Parke Custis, I

Wikipedia Biographical Summary:

"...Daniel Parke Custis (15 October 1711 – 8 July 1757) was a wealthy Virginia planter whose widow, Martha, married George Washington.

He was the son of John Custis (1678–1749), a powerful member of Virginia's Governor's Council, and Frances Parke Custis. He was a grandson of Daniel Parke, also a member of the Council and governor of the Leeward Islands.

Custis was born in York County, Virginia, and died in New Kent County, Virginia. He married Martha Dandridge on 15 May 1750. They had four children:

1. Daniel Parke Custis, Jr. (November 19, 1751 – February 19, 1754)
2. Frances Parke Custis (April 12, 1753 – April 1, 1757)
3. John “Jacky” Parke Custis (November 27, 1754 – November 5, 1781)
4. Martha “Patsy” Parke Custis (1756 – June 19, 1773)

Custis did not choose to take a leading role in colonial Virginia politics. Two years after his death, his widow, Martha, married George Washington, who became stepfather to the two surviving Custis children.

After his death, Daniel Custis' slave Betty Betty Davis, dower slave of Custis family became a slave of his widow, Martha, and later slave in the Washington household.

SOURCE: Wikipedia contributors, 'Daniel Parke Custis', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 July 2011, 04:09 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daniel_Parke_Custis&oldid...> [accessed 4 September 2011]

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https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Daniel%20Parke%20Custis

Death and estate

Custis died on July 8, 1757 in New Kent County, Virginia, most likely of a heart attack.[9][10] He is buried in the graveyard of the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Virginia next to two of his children he had with his wife, Daniel Parke Custis, Jr. and Frances Parke Custis.[11] Two years after Custis's death, on January 6, 1759, Martha married George Washington.[5]

Estate

As Custis died intestate, his widow Martha received the lifetime use of one-third of his property (known as a "dower share"),[12] while the other two-thirds was held in trust for their children. The January 1759 Custis estate also included at least 85 slaves.[13] According to the Mount Vernon slave census, by 1799 the dower share included 153 slaves. The October 1759 Custis estate inventory listed 17,779 acres (71.95 km2), or 27.78 square miles of land, spread over five counties.[14]

Upon Martha Custis's marriage to George Washington in 1759, her dower share came under his control, pursuant to the common law doctrine of seisin jure uxoris. He also became guardian of her two minor children, and administrator of the Custis estate. John Parke Custis was the only child to reach his majority, upon which he inherited the non-dower two-thirds of his father's estate.

Upon George Washington's death on December 14, 1799, the dower share and slaves reverted to Martha. Through a provision in his will, Washington directed that his 124 slaves be freed following his wife's death.[15] As George Washington stated in his will, he “earnestly wished” to free his own slaves at the time of his death, but acknowledged that doing so would create “insuperable difficulties” because they had intermarried with Martha’s “dower negroes,” over whom he had no authority, and that it would “excite the most painful sensations” and “disagreeable consequences” to attempt to separate them.[16] George's slaves were not part of the Custis estate, and Martha had no legal power to free them or the dower slaves, but they were freed at her request on January 1, 1801. The principal reason that Martha requested that George's slaves be set free is that she was concerned about her personal safety. George's slaves, having found out that they would be free upon her death, were suspected of wanting to hasten her death, and they were perceived as restive and as the possible cause of several suspicious fires on the Mount Vernon estate.[17]

When Martha died on May 22, 1802, her dower share reverted to the Custis estate. Because of Martha Washington's dower share, the estate could not be liquidated for more than 45 years. Martha's dower share was eventually divided between John Parke Custis's widow, Eleanor Calvert Custis Stuart, and their four children. Martha also bequeathed Elisha, the one slave that she owned herself, to her grandson George Washington Parke Custis.

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https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Custis_Daniel_Parke_1711-1757

Daniel Parke Custis, a planter, is best known as Martha Dandridge Custis Washington's first husband. Custis found his early life constrained by his father, John Custis (1679–1749), who squelched at least two of his courtships and was reluctant to give him land. Martha Dandridge, twenty years younger than Custis, eventually won his father's approval. He was a major landholder—inheriting 18,000 acres of land upon his father's death—but Custis declined to take a major role in Virginia politics. Martha Dandridge Custis inherited his property after Custis died without a will. She was one of the wealthiest young widows in Virginia when she married George Washington in 1759.

Custis was born in York County on the Queen's Creek plantation of his parents, John Custis, who became a member of the governor's Council in 1727, and Frances Parke Custis. His uncle William Byrd (1674–1744), also a member of the Council, and Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood stood as his godfathers. A member of one of the colony's wealthiest landed families, Custis was the child of an unhappy marriage. His parents were both hot-tempered and eccentric. Sometime after the death of his mother from smallpox in March 1715 but before 1717, Custis's father moved into a brick townhouse on Francis Street in Williamsburg and indulged his interest in horticulture by planting a notable garden with many new and experimental plants. Custis grew up in the capital and may have attended the grammar school and College of William and Mary.

His father's unhappy marriage, stingy attitude toward dowries and marriage settlements, and preoccupation with social status made it difficult for Custis and his elder sister to marry. Custis courted a woman named Betty (most likely a member of the Lightfoot or Tayloe families) in 1731 and 1732 and later his cousin Anne Byrd, daughter of William Byrd (1674–1744), but his father's demands prevented him from marrying the latter, as well as perhaps other eligible young women. His father was also reluctant to turn over control of any of his plantations to Custis until 1735, when he deeded Custis 275 acres of land in New Kent County on the Pamunkey River, where he may already have been living. As he entered his mid-twenties, Custis maintained a bachelor establishment there at White House plantation with almost 100 slaves. He came into his own as a vestryman of Saint Peter's Parish, an officer of the county militia, and a successful planter.

In 1748 Custis began courting Martha Dandridge, daughter of a local planter and county clerk. She was the niece of William Dandridge, a naval officer and member of the governor's Council who had died four years earlier, and the elder sister of Bartholomew Dandridge, who served in the Convention of 1776, on the Council of State, and on the Virginia Court of Appeals. She was then seventeen years old, twenty years Custis's junior. Custis's father objected strenuously to the Dandridge family's inability to provide a substantial dowry and to what he perceived as her inferior social status. Eventually the young woman persuaded Custis's father to relent and give permission for them to marry. Late in 1749, not long after he had signed a will in favor of his son, Custis's father died. Custis then inherited nearly 18,000 acres of prime farmland, houses in Williamsburg and Jamestown, about 200 additional slaves, and English treasury notes and cash worth several thousand pounds. He married Martha Dandridge on May 15, 1750, at Chestnut Grove, her New Kent County residence.

At White House and in Williamsburg, Custis and his wife enjoyed the life of a wealthy and elite Virginia planter family. They had four children, all given the middle name Parke in order to preserve their eligibility to inherit as descendants of his great-grandfather, Daniel Parke, a member of the Council who had died in 1679. Custis's first son and first daughter died early in childhood. His younger son, John Parke Custis, lived to adulthood and became heir to the Custis wealth and its entangled lawsuits; his second daughter, Martha Parke Custis, died at age seventeen after an epileptic seizure.

As one of the richest men in the colony, Custis could have taken a leading role in public affairs but never chose to do so. He and his second son became ill on July 4, 1757. His son survived, but Daniel Parke Custis died at White House on July 8, 1757. The medicines prescribed for treating his illness suggest that he died of some sort of virulent throat infection, such as scarlet fever, a streptococcal infection, diphtheria, or quinsy. He was buried beside his mother and children in the family burial ground at the Queen's Creek plantation in York County.

Custis died without a will. His widow inherited the property that was her dower right and managed the large estate for the benefit of their children. Martha Dandridge Custis was one of the wealthiest young widows in Virginia when on January 6, 1759, she married George Washington, who then took over as manager of the Custis property for the benefit of the children and gained additional wealth and social stature as a consequence of the marriage. Although Daniel Parke Custis was a successful planter, his principal claim to fame is as the first husband of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington and his indirect contribution to George Washington's rise to greatness.

Time Line

October 15, 1711 - Daniel Parke Custis is born in York County on the Queen's Creek plantation of his parents, John Custis (1678–1749) and Frances Parke Custis.

May 15, 1750 - Daniel Parke Custis marries Martha Dandridge at Chestnut Grove. They will have four children.

July 8, 1757 - Daniel Parke Custis dies at White House of a virulent throat infection. His widow, Martha Dandrige Custis inherits the property that was her dower right and manages the large estate for the benefit of their children.

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References

Welsh Harrison, William (1910). Harrison, Waples and Allied Families: Being the Ancestry Of George Leib Harrison Of Philadelphia and Of His Wife Sarah Ann Waples. p. 98.

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Watson, Robert P. (2012). Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Love, Sex, and Scandal, 1789-1900. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 97. ISBN 1-442-21834-7.

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Brady, Patricia. "Daniel Parke Custis (1711–1757)". Encyclopedia Virginia/Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Retrieved 17 June 2015.

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Gould, Lewis L., ed. (2014). American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy. Routledge. p. 2. ISBN 1-135-31148-X.

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Schneider, Dorothy; Schneider, Carl J. (2010). First Ladies: A Biographical Dictionary. Infobase Publishing. p. 2. ISBN 1-438-12750-2.

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McKenney, Janice E. (2012). Women of the Constitution: Wives of the Signers. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 184. ISBN 0-810-88498-4.

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Schneider 2010 p.10

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Watson 2012 p.102

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Wiencek, Henry (2013). An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. Macmillan. p. 67. ISBN 1-466-85659-9.

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Freeman, Douglas Southall; Carroll, John Alexander; Wells Ashworth, Mary (1948). George Washington: Young Washington. C. Scribner's Sons. p. 299.

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"Tombstone of Daniel Parke Custis, Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg". marthawashington.us. Retrieved December 1, 2014.

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Even if Custis had died testate, Martha, as his widow, could have elected against the will and taken her dower. See http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=31...

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The number is imprecise because the January 1759 Custis Estate inventory listed some enslaved mothers "with children," but didn't specify the number of children.

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"Account of Land and Acreage, Estate of Daniel Parke Custis", in Worthy Partner, pp. 103-04. This land inventory was incomplete, not listing Custis lots in Jamestown and Williamsburg.

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Washington's private letters indicate a plan to rent out the dower slaves to other plantations, with the income going toward purchasing them from the Custis Estate, and ultimately freeing them. This would have required the approval of all the Custis heirs to succeed, but it is not known why it was never implemented. See George Washington to Dr. David Stuart, February 7, 1796.

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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/06-04-02-0404-0001 | Text of George Washington’s Last Will and Testament

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http://marthawashington.us/exhibits/show/martha-washington--a-life/...