Arlington (Plantation : Va.)

Time Line
1802 - George Washington Parke Custis begins construction of Arlington House on an 1,100-acre property inherited from his father, John Parke Custis. Custis initially calls the estate Mount Washington.
December 1803 - Contemporary observers note that George Washington Parke Custis has finished one wing of what will become Arlington House.
July 7, 1804 - George Washington Parke Custis and Mary Lee Fitzhugh, of Chatham, marry in Alexandria.
1818 - Construction of Arlington House, which began in 1802, is completed.
June 30, 1831 - Robert E. Lee marries Mary Anna Randolph Custis, Martha Washington's great-granddaughter, at Arlington, the Custis family seat.
April 23, 1853 - Mary Fitzhugh Custis dies and is buried near Arlington House.

George Washington Parke Custis (April 30, 1781 – October 10, 1857) was an American plantation owner, antiquarian, author, and playwright. His father John Parke Custis was the step-son of George Washington. He and his sister Eleanor grew up at Mount Vernon and in the Washington presidential household.

Upon reaching age 21, Custis inherited a large fortune from his late father, John Parke Custis, including a plantation in what is now Arlington, Virginia. High atop a hill overlooking the Potomac River and Washington, D.C., he built the Greek Revival mansion Arlington House (1803–18), as a shrine to George Washington. There he preserved and displayed many of Washington's belongings. Custis wrote historical plays about Virginia, delivered a number of patriotic addresses, and was the author of the posthumously-published Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington (1860).

His daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married Robert E. Lee. They inherited Arlington House and the plantation surrounding it, but the property was soon confiscated by the federal government during the Civil War. After the Civil War, the property was deemed to have been illegally confiscated by the US Supreme Court and was ordered returned to Lee's heirs. After regaining Arlington Custis Lee immediately sold it back to the federal government for its market value. Arlington House is now a museum, interpreted by the National Park Service as the Robert E. Lee Memorial. The remainder of Arlington plantation is now Fort Myer and Arlington National Cemetery.