I suggest that we take your reparations and pay them to the slave reparations people. Their claim makes just as much sense as yours.
he's in the front row nearest the fire.
FRee dixie,sw
THE CUSTIS ESTATE
George Washington Parke Custis was a colonel in the United States Army. Born at Mount Airy, Maryland, on April 30, 1781, his parents were John Parke Custis and Eleanor (Calvert) Custis.
After his father died, G.W.P. Custis was raised by his grandmother Martha and her second husband, George Washington at Mount Vernon. The Custis mansion, intended as a living memorial to George Washington, was owned and constructed by the first president's adopted grandson, G.W.P. Custis, son of John Parke Custis who himself was a child of Martha Washington by her first marriage and a ward of George Washington. His mansion, begun in 1802 but not completed until 1817, held a collection of Washington heirlooms.
George Washington Parke Custis considered calling the estate Mount Washington, but eventually adopted the name of the Custis family ancestral estate.
The mansion was built on an 1,100-acre estate that Custis' father, John Parke Custis, purchased in 1778. It was designed by George Hadfield, the English architect who was for a time in charge of the construction of the Capitol.
In 1804, G.W.P. Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. Their only child to survive infancy was Mary Anna Randolph Custis, born in 1808.
On June 30, 1831, Mary Anna Randolph Custis married her husband Robert, son of a former three-time governor. For 30 years this mansion was their home, and six of their seven children were born there.
G.W.P. Custis left the estate to his daughter Mary for her lifetime, to be passed on to the her eldest son. The estate was in need of repair and Mary's husband Robert, as executor, oversaw the improvements.
THE CUSTIS ESTATE AND THE CIVIL WAR
Virginia adopted an Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861. On April 22, 1861, Robert left the home, never to return. About a month later, Mary also left, managing to send some of the family valuables off to safety. Later, many of the remaining family possessions were moved to the Patent Office for safekeeping. Some items, including Mount Vernon heirlooms, had already been looted.
THE CUSTIS ESTATE WRONGFULLY SEIZED
In 1863 Congress levied a tax on all confiscated properties, but payment was rejected for the Custis estate.
A wartime law required that owners of property in areas occupied by Federal troops appear in person to pay their taxes.
The property was confiscated by the federal government when property taxes levied against the estate were not paid in person by the owner, which was Mary. The property was offered for public sale on January 11, 1864, and was purchased by a tax commissioner for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes."
Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who commanded a wartime garrison at the estate, appropriated the grounds June 15, 1864. Intending to render the house uninhabitable should the family ever attempt to return, Gen. Meigs ordered the remains of war dead to be buried as close to the home as possible. A burial vault in the rose garden containins the remains of 1,800 Bull Run casualties.
Neither Mary, as title holder, nor Robert as executor, ever attempted to publicly recover control of the estate.
After their death, their son George brought an action for ejectment in the Circuit Court of Alexandria County, Va. As the eldest son, he claimed that the land had been illegally confiscated and that, according to his grandfather's will, he was the legal owner. In December 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, returned the property, stating that it had been confiscated without due process.
On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property for $150,000, and it became a military reservation.
AND NOW, THE REST OF THE STORY...
Today the mansion, conceived as a living memorial to George Washington, looks somewhat out of place. The effort begun by General Meigs continued and the mansion is now surrounded by hundreds of thousands of graves.
Originally envisioned as Mount Washington, the estate came to be named after the ancestral Custis estate, Arlington.
George Washington's descendant, Mary Anna Randolph Custis married her husband Robert Edward Lee.
The estate was unlawfully confiscated from the lawful owner, the wife of Robert E. Lee.
Ownership was returned to the Custis family by a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court rendered on December 4, 1882. U.S. v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882)
On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property from George Washington Custis Lee for $150,000.
On March 4, 1925, restoration of the Mansion was authorized. On August 10, 1933, it was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service. On June 29, 1955, it was declared a permanent memorial to Robert E. Lee, with a name change to "Custis-Lee Mansion."
On June 30, 1972, the mansion was restored to its historic name, Arlington House.
It is the former estate of Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Lee that became Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington House was their home.
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