Arlington Estate, 1860

In 1778, John Parke Custis purchased most of the 1,100 acres comprising Arlington from the Alexander family. His son, George Washington Parke Custis, came in 1802 and completed the house in 1818, naming it Arlington after the old Custis estate on Virginia's eastern shore. The estate prospered through most of his lifetime, but after his death its character changed sharply: in 1857 ownership passed to Mrs. Robert E. Lee, his sole surviving child; in 1861 the Lees left forever and Union troops occupied the estate throughout the war; in 1864 two hundred acres surrounding the house were set aside as a cemetery for Civil War dead; and in 1882 the U.S. Supreme Court returned the estate to Mrs. Robert E. Lee's son, G.W. Custis Lee, who, unable to make his home there with thousands of graves surrounding the house, sold Arlington to the government for $150,000.

Arlington, Virginia · United States