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BY MATTHEW BARAK AT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARLINGTON, Va. George Washington’s adopt ed son was a bit of a ne’er-do well by most accounts, includ ing those of Washington him self, who wrote about his frustrations with the boy they called “Wash.” ‘From his infancy, I have discovered an almost uncon querable disposition to indo lence in everything that did not tend to his amusements,” the founding father wrote. At the time, George Washington Parke Custis was 16 and attending Princeton, one of several schools he bounced in and out of. Before long, he was back home at Mount Vernon, where he would be accused of father ing children with slaves. Two centuries later, the National Park Service and the nonprofit that runs Washington's Mount Vernon estate are concluding that the rumors were true. In separate exhibits, they show that the first family’s family tree has been biracial from its earliest branches. “There is no more pushing this history to the side,” said Matthew Penrod, a National Park Service ranger and pro grams manager at Arlington House, where the lives of the Washingtons, their slaves and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee all converged. President George Washington had no direct descendants, and his wife Martha Custis was a widow when they married, but he adopted Martha’s grandchil dren — “Wash” and his sister “Nellie” — and raised them on his Mount Vernon estate. Parke Custis married Mary Fitzhugh in 1804, and they had one daughter who survived into adulthood, Mary Anna Randolph Custis. In 1831, she mar ried her third cousin Lee, who then served as a U.S. Army lieutenant. Outside the marriage, Parke Custis likely fathered children with two of his stepfather’s slaves: Arianna Carter, and Caroline Branham, according to the exhibits at Arlington House and Mount Vernon. The first official acknowl edgment came in June when the Park Service re-enacted the 1821 wedding of Maria Carter to Charles Syphax at Arlington House, the hilltop mansion overlooking the cap ital that Custis built (and Lee later managed) as a shrine to his adoptive stepfather. A new family tree, unveiled at the re-enactment, lists the bride’s parents as Parke Custis and Arianna Carter. “We fully recognize that the first family of this country was much more than what it appeared on the surface,’ Penrod said at the ceremony. The privately run Mount Vernon estate explores this slave history in “Lives Bound Together,” an exhibi tion opening this year that acknowledges that Parke Custis also likely fathered a girl named Lucy with slave Caroline Branham. Tour guides were hardly this frank when Penrod started at Arlington House 26 years ago. Staffers were told to describe slave dwell ings as “servants’ quarters,” and “the focus was on Lee, to honor him and show him in the most positive light,” Penrod said. He said no new, defini tive evidence has surfaced to prove Parke Custis fathered girls with slaves; rather, the recognition reflects a growing sense that African-American his tory cannot be disregarded and that Arlington House represents more than Lee’s legacy, he said. Scientific proof would require matching the DNA of Carter and Branham descen dants to the progeny of his daughter and the Confederate general, because the Parke Custis line runs exclusively through the offspring of his daughter and Robert E. Lee. Stephen Hammond of Reston, a Syphax descen dant, has researched his family tree extensively. He said the Park Service’s recognition of the Custis’ paternity is gratifying. “It’s become a passion of mine, figuring out where we fit in American histo ry,” Hammond said. Hammond said he and his cousins have yet to approach the Lee descen dants to gauge their interest in genetic tests, and it’s not clear how they feel about the official recognition several didn't respond to Associated Press requests for comment. Some family records are kept at Robert E. Lee’s birth place, Stratford Hall, but research director Judy Hynson said she knows of none that acknowledge Parke Custis fathered slaves. “That’s not something you would write down in your family Bible,” Hynson said. The circumstantial evi dence includes the Carter- Syphax wedding in Arlington House — an unusual honor for slaves — and the fact that Parke Custis not only freed Maria Syphax and her sons before the Civil War, but set aside 17 acres on the estate for her. Indeed, after Mount Vernon was seized by Union forces, an act of Congress ensured that land was returned to Maria Syphax’s family. New York Sen. Ira Harris said then that Washington’s adopted son had a special interest in her “something perhaps akin to a paternal instinct.” MATTHEW BARAKAT/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Craig Syphax of Arlington, Va., and Donna Kunkel of Los Angeles portray their ancestors at a re-enactment of the 1821 wedding of slaves Charles Syphax and Maria Carter at Arlington House, the estate once owned by George Washington's adopted son, on June 25 in Arlington, Va.
Newspaper Details
Brownsville Herald
Brownsville, Texas, US
Sun, Sep 18, 2016
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Erika S.
USA 11 Jun 2026
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