Qualla: White House (plantation)

White House (plantation): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benson Lossing, Public domain. On January 6, 1759, George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis in one of the rooms of the White House Mansion on the Pamunkey River. He was twenty-six, a Virginia militia colonel back from the frontier wars. She was twenty-seven, a widow with two small children and a substantial estate from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. A century later, almost to the day, the same house would burn at the hands of Union soldiers, and the woman who had been living in it briefly was Martha's great-granddaughter by marriage, the wife of Robert E. Lee. The wedding and the fire were part of the same long American family story.

Read more: White House (plantation) on Qualla

Image: Benson Lossing | Public domain

White House (plantation): Three Houses on One Foundation

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benson John Lossing, Public domain. The White House sat on the Pamunkey River in New Kent County, on land first patented by Colonel John Lightfoot III, who built the original mansion just before 1700 while serving as Counselor of State of colonial Virginia. The Lightfoots eventually sold the property and other parc...

Read more: White House (plantation) on Qualla

Image: Benson John Lossing | Public domain

White House (plantation): The Custis-Lee Inheritance

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benson Lossing, Public domain. George Washington had no biological children. Martha had four by her first marriage; only two survived to adulthood, and only one, John Parke Custis, survived his stepfather. John's son, George Washington Parke Custis, was raised in part by the Washingtons at Mount Vernon and wen...

Read more: White House (plantation) on Qualla

Image: Benson Lossing | Public domain

White House (plantation): 1861: Mary Lee Flees

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benson Lossing, Public domain. Virginia seceded in April 1861. Robert E. Lee, then a colonel recently returned from command of the Department of Texas, was offered command of the entire Union Army by Abraham Lincoln. He spent a night thinking it over at Arlington House, then resigned his commission and went ho...

Read more: White House (plantation) on Qualla

Image: Benson Lossing | Public domain

White House (plantation): Ruins on the Pamunkey

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benson Lossing, Public domain. The story of the White House gathers up several of the most consequential threads in American history: the founding generation, the slow building of the Lee family inheritance from Washington's marriage, and the Civil War that ended the world both families had been born into. The...

Read more: White House (plantation) on Qualla

Image: Benson Lossing | Public domain