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The Arlington House/Robert E. Lee Memorial was originally known
as the Custis-Lee Mansion: Custis, because it was built by Martha
Washington’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis;
Lee, because it was later inherited by General Robert E. Lee’s
wife, Mary Custis Lee, Martha’s great-granddaughter and
GWP Custis’ only surviving child.
In fact, Robert E. Lee was at Arlington House in 1859 when
the government called him to lead federal troops to capture
John Brown at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. And, Lee was living
there two years later when he submitted his resignation from
the United States Army after Virginia seceded from the Union.
Shortly after that, General Montgomery Meigs spitefully ordered
that the Union soldiers killed at the First Battle of Bull Run
be buried in “Mrs. Lee’s rose garden.” Meigs
never forgave Lee for abandoning the Union, and the Lees never
returned to the grounds now known as Arlington Cemetery.
Now, back to George Washington Parke Custis. He lived at Mount
Vernon since the age of two and was devoted to his adopted grandfather.
He left as an adult only because his grandparents died and Mount
Vernon was inherited by Washington’s blood relatives.
On leaving Mount Vernon, Custis brought as much furniture and
memorabilia with him as the Washington heirs would allow him
to buy or take. His goal was to make his new home at Arlington
House a memorial to the country’s founder. Along with
the inanimate goods, he also moved dozens of slaves with him
ten miles up the Potomac River to the bluffs overlooking Washington
City.
Like the Capitol and White House structures, slave labor undoubtedly
built Arlington House. Arlington was a small plantation of about
1100 acres of experimental fields and gardens, all tended by
slave labor. Slaves raised the Custis and the Lee children,
dressed them, bathed them, nursed them, and fed them. Slaves
scoured the rooms and dusted the Washington artifacts brought
from Mount Vernon. After the Civil War the house itself was
abandoned until the 1920s when repairs were made and it was
opened to tourists to learn about the Custis-Lee heritage.
Today we are learning more about the other residents of Arlington
House. The Park Service is conducting an archeological study
focusing on the daily lives of the slave families and who they
were. We now know that George Clark was the Lee family cook.
There was Sally and Leonard Norris, and their daughter Selina
Gray. There were the Parks, the Branhams, the Rowes and the
Syphax families, all of whom can trace their lineage from colonial
times at Mount Vernon to the Civil War at Arlington House, through
both World Wars, the years of segregation, integration, Vietnam
and today.
We know that it was Selina Gray to whom Mrs. Lee entrusted
the keys to the house when the Lees went South. Selina protected
the Lee family possessions and Washington artifacts from the
depredations of Union soldiers who made the house their headquarters.
During the 1929 restoration of the home, her descendants, many
still living in the Virginia area, gave accounts of daily life,
what the rooms looked like, and donated furniture and other
mementos that were passed on to them by the Lees. Many of their
own ancestors are buried at Arlington Cemetery.
One Parks family descendant tells of a 1960’s school
field trip to Arlington Cemetery, when a white classmate proudly
told everyone his grandpa was buried there. Young Parks didn’t
tell the class about his great-great grandfather buried nearby,
James Parks. The elder Parks was born at Arlington House in
the 1840s, was raised with the Lee children, and was a pallbearer
at Mrs. Lee’s funeral. In spite of this close relationship,
Parks’ tombstone memorializes him only as a “kindly
negro slave.” This made his great-great grandson too embarrassed
to point out the grave to his classmates. Fortunately, recent
research at Arlington House is discovering more about the proud
heritage of the people who contributed so much, but whose stories
are rarely shared.
As a member of the privileged class, George Washington Parke
Custis ensured his family’s place in history. While it
remains unknown what his slaves brought with them from Mount
Vernon, we are just beginning to find out what they, and their
descendants, left. Using the new information discovered at Arlington
House, combined with their stories of slavery and freedom, they
will establish their rightful place in our country’s history.
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