Early Years
Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis was born on March 31, 1779, at Mount Airy, her maternal grandfather's estate in Prince George's County, Maryland. She was the daughter of Eleanor Calvert Custis and John Parke Custis, a planter and member of the House of Delegates who died in November 1781. Two years later she and her younger brother, George Washington Parke Custis, were informally adopted by their grandmother Martha Custis Washington and stepgrandfather George Washington when the latter returned to Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County, at the close of the American Revolution (1775–1783). Her two elder sisters, Elizabeth Parke Custis (later Law) and Martha Parke Custis (later Peter), remained with their mother and stepfather, David Stuart, a physician and member of the Convention of 1788.
At Mount Vernon and Woodlawn
The central block of their house was not yet inhabitable, so in 1802 the Lewises moved into one of the small dependencies. Completed in 1805, their new home was named Woodlawn, probably for the estate in one of Martha Washington's and Nelly Custis's favorite novels, The Children of the Abbey. Designed by William Thornton, architect of the U.S. Capitol and a friend of George Washington, Woodlawn was an elegant red-brick Georgian manor house flanked by one-and-a-half-story dependencies connected by hyphens. There Lewis managed her extensive household and lavishly entertained numerous guests.
As agricultural land in eastern Virginia became less productive and Alexandria declined as a port, profitable farming at Woodlawn became impossible for the Lewises. Their surviving son moved to Audley plantation, in Clarke County, which became the family's major source of income. Their two daughters married men who settled in Louisiana, and beginning in the mid-1830s the couple divided their time between Louisiana and Virginia. Lawrence Lewis died on November 20, 1839, following a daughter's death two months earlier. Nelly Custis Lewis went to live permanently at Audley. A noted needlewoman and artist, she completed numerous needlepoint and embroidered keepsakes for her relatives and friends.
Keeper of Washington's Legacy
Nelly Custis was the delight of George and Martha Washington's lives and the most accurate purveyor of information about them. During her long life, stretching from the American Revolution until the crucial decade leading up to the American Civil War (1861–1865), she was a living point of connection with the most important of the founding fathers. Nelly Custis Lewis suffered partial paralysis during the last two years of her life. She died at Audley on July 15, 1852, and was buried at Mount Vernon in an enclosure adjoining George Washington's tomb. In 1915 Lunt Silversmiths designed a Nellie Custis silver pattern, and her name also appears in various guises on the landscape of Northern Virginia, including Nelly Custis Park, in Arlington County, and the Nelly Custis Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, in Fort Belvoir, Fairfax County.
Time Line
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November 5, 1781 - John Parke Custis dies at Eltham, in New Kent County.
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1783 - Siblings Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis are informally adopted by their stepgrandparents George and Martha Washington.
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May 1789 - Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis joins her stepgrandfather George Washington in New York City after his election as president.
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1790 - Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis moves from New York City to Philadelphia when the U.S. capital moves.
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February 22, 1799 - Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis and Lawrence Lewis marry.
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March 31, 1799 - Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis is born at Mount Airy, Prince George's County, Maryland.
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December 14, 1799 - George Washington dies at Mount Vernon after a short illness.
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May 22, 1802 - Martha Dandridge Custis Washington dies at Mount Vernon.
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1805 - Lawrence Lewis and his wife, Nelly Custis Lewis, complete work on their home, Woodlawn.
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1835 - A grand tomb is erected at Mount Vernon in honor of George Washington.
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November 20, 1839 - Lawrence Lewis dies.
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1846 - Nelly Custis Lewis sells her Woodlawn estate in Fairfax County.
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July 15, 1852 - Nelly Custis Lewis dies at Audley, in Clarke County.
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1951 - Woodlawn, an estate in Fairfax County, becomes the first property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
References
Further Reading
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Brady, P., & the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis (1779–1852). (2017, January 18). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Custis_Eleanor_Nelly_Parke_1779-1852.
- MLA Citation:
Brady, Patricia and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis (1779–1852)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 18 Jan. 2017. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: January 6, 2017 | Last modified: January 18, 2017