The Gardens and Grounds of Mt. Vernon , Va. 
a m ong the 
wealthier 
planters of 
Virginia, and 
his marriage 
in 1759 to the 
widow M artha 
C u s t i s , the 
richest woman 
in Virginia, 
brought him 
a very large 
addition to his 
fortunes. He 
was then in his 
twenty - sev¬ 
enth year, a 
tall fine figure 
of a man, a 
member of the 
House of 
Burgesses and 
already known in public affairs. He brought 
his wife and her two children, John and 
Martha Parke Custis, home to Mount Ver¬ 
non. The house was, at this time, as 
Lawrence Washington left it: a two storied 
building of four rooms on each floor with a 
wide hall on its east and west axis, and a 
portico toward the river. It stood on an 
eminence, of 
about one 
hundred feet 
above the 
river, sloping 
down to the 
shore in broad 
finely wooded 
and parked 
slopes. Wash¬ 
ington thus 
described the 
site and re- 
g i o n : “A 
high, healthv, 
country, in a 
latitude be¬ 
tween the ex¬ 
tremes of heat 
and cold, on 
one of the 
finest rivers in 
the world. . . . The borders of the estate 
are washed by more than ten miles of tide¬ 
water; several valuable fisheries appertain to 
it.” 
When not in attendance upon the Virginia 
House of Burgesses, of which he was a 
member for fifteen years,—his family usually 
accompanying him to Williamsburg and re- 
THF. STOREHOUSE, WASH-HOUSE, COACH HOUSE AND STABLES 
THE KITCHEN-GARDEN 
MT. VERNON 
466 
