George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington, born at Mount Airy, Md., April 30, 1781, died at Arlington house, Fairfax co., Va., Oct. 10, 1857. He was the youngest child of John Parke Custis, a son of Mrs. Washington by her first husband, and an aide-de-camp to Gen. Washington at the siege of Yorktown. John Parke Custis died at Eltham, Md., of camp fever, just after the surrender of Cornwallis, leaving four children, the two youngest of whom were adopted by Washington. George Washington Parke Custis was brought up at Mount Vernon, subsequently pursued his classical studies at Princeton, and remained a member of Washington's family until the death of Mrs. Washington in 1802, when he went to reside at Arlington, an estate of 1,000 acres in the neighborhood of Washington, which he had inherited from his father. He erected Arlington house, and devoted his life to literary and agricultural pursuits. After 1852 he was the sole surviving member of Washington's family, and his residence was for years an attractive resort on account of its many interesting relics of that family.

Mr. Custis was the author of a number of remarkable orations, of several plays, and of " Recollections of Washington," published at various times in the "National Intelligencer." He was fond of painting, and in the latter part of his life executed a number of pictures of revolutionary battles. He was married in early life to Miss Mary Lee Fitzhugh of Virginia, and left a daughter, who married Robert E. Lee, from whom the Arlington estate was confiscated in the civil war, being now held as national property and the site of a Union soldiers' cemetery.