Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis (April 22, 1788-April 23, 1853), was an Episcopal lay leader in Alexandria County (now Arlington County, Virginia). The daughter of Ann Randolph Fitzhugh and William Fitzhugh (1741-1809), a member of the Continental Congress, she was most likely born at Chatham, in Stafford County, Virginia. On July 7, 1804, she married George Washington Parke Custis, an orator, playwright, and writer. They lived at Arlington, an 1,100-acre plantation in Alexandria County, Virginia. Of their four daughters, only Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who later married Robert Edward Lee, survived childhood.

Custis was a member of a family network in northern Virginia that helped revive the state's Episcopal Church in the first part of the nineteenth century. She particularly influenced her cousin Bishop William Meade. Custis promoted Sunday schools and supported the work of the American Colonization Society.

She died at Arlington on April 23, 1853, and was buried on the estate.

[edit] References

• Death notice and tribute in Alexandria Gazette, May 16, 27, 1853.
• Biography in John T. Kneebone et al., eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1998- ), 3:640-642. ISBN 0-88490-206-4