George Washington Parke Custis Painting

The fellow who's image adorns the top of this site at this moment is George Washington Parke Custis. Son of John Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington, ward of George Washington and father-in-law of Robert E. Lee. Builder of Arlington House outside Alexandria, he was also the largest landowner in New Kent throughout the Antebellum era until his death in 1857. His death and the need to settle his estate was why Robert E. Lee spent so much time in the Washington area in the run up to the Civil War.

The image is from the Sneden Diary at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia, and is an illustration taken from a painting dated 1855.

Walking Across the York River- Winter 1857

WEATHER IN NEW KENT.- YORK RIVER FROZEN OVER- A correspondent of the Petersburg Express, writing from New Kent county, Va, on the 26th inst, says,

Every public highway is now obstructed with snow from three to ten feet in depth, and water has congealed in close room, within a few inches of a blazing oak and hickory fire.

Pamunkey river is frozen entirely across with ice twelve inches in thickness, and the York and Mattaponi rivers are in the same condition, so far as can be perceived with the aid of a strong lens. A gentleman, named Penny, walked across York river last Saturday, at a point where it is three miles in width, and the water as salt as that around Neptune's footstool, if he ever had a resting place for his pedal extremities. The steamer Sea Bird is said to be at Bigler's wharf, York river, with her paddle wheels firmly locked in by the ice.

It is the impression of venerable tillers of the soil hereabouts, that the wheat crop will suffer material damage from the freeze.

-The Daily Dispatch (Richmond, Va.) February 3, 1857