John Custis

John Custis (August 1678-after 14 November 1749) was a powerful member of the colonial Virginia governor's Council. The son of John Custis (ca. 1654-1714), who was also a member of the governor's Council, 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 moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, by 1717. There he created a magnificent four-acre garden and corresponded with many celebrated horticulturists and naturalists. Custis served on the governor's Council from 1727 until increasingly ill health forced him to request to be suspended in August 1749. 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 Dandridge Custis 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.

*Zuppan, Jo, ed. "The Letterbook of John Custis IV of Williamsburg, 1717-1742" (2005).