Arlington House (Cape Charles, Va.)

where it converges with the Chesapeake Bay close to what is now the quaint little town of Cape Charles, Arlington Plantation was founded on the Eastern Shore Virginia. This special site is one of the most historic properties in our nation yet its significance is little known. For many centuries this area was inhabited by native American Indians, until occupation by English settlers of this site and the area up to the Kings Creek inlet three miles north, Sir Thomas Dale established the first permanent settlement of English colonists on the Eastern Shore in 1617 known as Dale’s Gift. Here, half a century later, a plantation was founded by John Custis II whose prosperity was demonstrated by the construction of the most magnificent mansion on the whole of the Chesapeake Bay. Apparently he named the plantation in honor of his family’s benefactor, Lord Arlington, although the name was possibly derived from the English village Arlington-Bibury, home to the first generation of the Custis family. More than three hundred fifty years after Arlington mansion first rose high above the waters of Old Plantation Creek, the name itself still lives on, engrained in the minds of all Americans as the land upon which thousands of American soldiers rest eternally, Arlington National Cemetary.