January 5

It hardly needs to be said that a marriage is far more than the sum of its parts. Our nation’s first president, George Washington, was a wealthy land and slave owner when he married Martha Dandridge Custis on the 5th in 1759. Martha, however, brought significantly more money to the marriage bed than George did. Arlington National Cemetery, which sits on more than 140 acres of prime real estate in Virginia, was built on land formerly owned by Martha.
Washington had no children. His nephew, Bushrod Washington, who at age 38 was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, inherited his estate in Mount Vernon, then home to the largest distillery in the United States of America. The distillery has been restored and it was re-opened on March 30, 2007. Today it produces 5000 gallons of whiskey a year, which is only available for purchase at the estate’s gift shop.
Martha Washington had inherited a great deal of money and land from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. The land eventually landed in the hands of Robert E. Lee, who was George Washington Parke Custis' son-in-law. During the Civil War, the land was confiscated and after years in the lower courts, the Supreme Court upheld the Lee Families ownership and in 1882 the United States Congress authorized spending $150,000 to purchase the land for use as the Arlington National Cemetery. Did I hear you ask where did the money come from? Martha’s first husband was Daniel Parke Custis. His grandfather was Daniel Parke, who sat on colonial Virginia’s council and was Queen Anne’s governor of the Leeward Islands. Parke was assassinated in a mutiny provoked by his rather self-enriching execution of his duties to the Queen in the islands.