The "Baltimore Patriot" on White House- 1855

The below is excerpted from a contemporary report from the Richmond Dispatch . . .

The White House.-The house in which Gen. Washington was married, was in New Kent County, Va, and known as the White House. It has been demolished, and a new edifice occupies its site. A correspondent of the Baltimore Patriot writes:

"The White House as it now stands, on a slightly elevated bluff of the Pamunkey, it the conspicuous object of the country around. The site was selected with that controlling regard for the picturesque which is the characteristic of Eastern Virginia — But the building in its exterior is unpretending— to plainness. A stranger is slow, to realise that so rich in historic associations, this is also the mansion of
tract of 8000 acres, busy with 130 negroes, and an annual yield in wheat alone of 11,000 bushels— Yet it is not by the exterior that a stranger is to judge of the Old Dominion.

"Washington married at 27. As the widow of John Parke Custis, Mrs. Washington was entitled to one-third of the New Kent estate, and forty-five pounds stirling, the remaining two thirds being  divided between her two children, a son and daughter -the grandson, George P. Curtis, of Arlington, is the present proprietor of the White House estate."

"As a matter of general interest to our readers in tide-water Virginia, we would state, in connection with the above notice, that a line of stages will shortly be established on the route between Richmond and the White House. Thence passengers can take passage in the York River steamers for any landing in King and Queen, Gloucester, James City, York, or for other points, and avid the round about way which they are now forced to adopt. In some future number of our paper, we propose to embody some facts that we have collected with regard to the country bordering on York river, which cannot fail to prove interesting.

 -The Daily Dispatch(Richmond), March 21, 1855