Custis, John III , 1654?-1714

John Custis III (1654 – January 26, 1714) was a Virginia-born planter and politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly in the British colony of Virginia, as well as in various local offices on the Eastern Shore of Virginia in Northampton County. He is sometimes designated John Custis III or "of Wilsonia" to distinguish him from his son (John Custis IV or "of Williamsburg", as well as his father (and great-uncle), all of the same name, and who all also served in the Assembly's upper house, the Virginia Governor's Council.[1 Custis was born in late 1653 or early 1654 in Northampton County, Virginia, to British merchant and eventual emigrant John Custis II and his first wife, Elizabeth Robinson Eyer, John Custis III was raised mostly at the mansion his father built and called Arlington plantation, which he had purchased from Thomas Burdett, Custis was a planter who grew tobacco using enslaved labor. He mostly resided on his Wilsonia plantation, which is now Machipongo, Virginia. Custis often appears as an attorney in early Northampton County records, Northampton County voters elected John Custis III as one of their two delegates in the House of Burgesses in 1684, and he served many terms in the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly until appointed to the Governor's Council in late 1699 (remaining in the upper house for the rest of his life, as was customary) This John Custis married twice. His first wife, Margaret Michael, bore him seven sons and two daughters, but died following her second daughter's birth. In 1691, Custis married her brother's widow, but Sarah Littleton Michael bore no further children.[1] John Custis IV as the eldest son by primogeniture received most of his father's significant estate. John Custis III suffered ill health, including gout and arthritis, during his final years. He wrote his will in 1708, by which time he owned over 7,000 acres of land and 30 slaves.[10] He died at his Wilsonia plantation on January 26, 1714, and was buried there. Arlington burned to the ground during his son's tenure, and while major signage indicates only John Custis II and John Custis IV are buried at the Arlington plantation's Custis Tombs, a smaller sign indicates Custis III was also reburied there.