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| This rather blurry photo is from the article |
BIRTHPLACE OF MRS. WASHINGTON
Chestnut Grove the Childhood Home of Martha Dandridge.
WAS BULIT IN THE LONG AGO
No One Living Has Any Record of the Date of
the Erection.
(Special
to The Times-Dispatch.)
WEST POINT, VA., May
10.- Chestnut Grove, the birthplace of Martha Dandridge, who married first
Daniel Parks Custis and then Colonel George Washington, is only a short Journey
from West Point. It is situated in New Kent county, about five miles from the
county seat, on the banks of the Pamunkey River. The old mansion, in which Mrs.
Washington first saw the light, is standing to-day, and by the nails, lumber
and style of construction, extreme age is attested.
Colonel R. P. Cook,
who was born in New Kent, near Chestnut Grove (the Dandridge homestead),
October 10, 1813, and who purchased the property and lived on it fifty years,
said that his grandmother, who was Miss Ann K. Chamberlayne, sister of General William Chamberlayne, and a schoolmate of Martha Dandridge (Mrs. General
Washington), told him that she did not know when the house was built, and had
no acquaintance with any one who did know.
The building is a
two-story frame structure, the walls, resting on a brick basement which is five
feet below the surface of the ground and four feet above ground, are eighteen
(18) inches thick, save it the bases of the two chimneys, each of which is 5x6
feet, with an arch in the basement six feet high, 4 feet wide and five feet
deep.
The lumber in the
frame is white oak; the doors and window castings are of popular, and the
weather boarding is of heart-pine. The nails were originally all hand-made.
Several years ago it was found necessary to replace many of the nails, for the
sake of safety, as so many have had been drawn out and taken away as souvenirs
or relics by tourists.
The length of the
basement walls is fifty-eight feet, width 22 feet, and many sumptuous banquets
have boon served therein.
The rooms on the
first floor are ten feet high twenty feet wide, and eighteen feet long.
The reception hall is
twelve by twenty feet. On the place is a large burying ground, containing the
graves of the Dandridges and many noted people of long ago. A large vault remained
there for many years, built of imported brick. The bricks were afterwards used
to build a chimney. On the site of the vault thousands, of walnut trees sprung
up, and many canes and other souvenirs have been cut and fashioned and carried
away by relic hunters.
The place is now
owned by Mrs. M. C. Smith, of Newport News, and is occupied by Mr. O. M.
Chandler and family, Mrs. Chandler is a daughter of Mrs. Smith.
The house fronts north to the Pamunkey River, and also
fronts to the south. Sloping from the house to the river is a terraced garden,
filled with many beautiful flowers and old-timey shrubs, among others the
calacanthus, with its delicious fragrance. Out in the river, in front of the
house, is a small island, known as "Cook's Island." During the
Civil War, gun boats were sunk on either side of the island to block the course
to Richmond.
The name Chestnut
Grove was given on account of the many fine chestnut trees abounding on the
farm.
While Martha
Dandridge was the wife of Daniel Parke Custis she lived at the White
House, the site of which can be seen from the Southern Railroad, running
between West Point and Richmond. Tradition says that the presidential mansion in Washington, D. C., was named from the home of Mrs. Custis, afterwards Mrs.
Washington, wife of the first President of the United States.
After Colonel
Washington and Mrs. Custis were married, in 1759 they, lived at Mount Vernon
until the revolution.
Her neighbors, while
she lived in New Kent, were of no mean sort, for among them were the Claibornes,
Lewises, Webbs, Bassetts, Macons and many others whose names are still familiar
in this section of Virginia.
These, in substantial
mansions of a former generation, lived in lordly manor and entertained with
lavish hospitality. Many of the old buildings have decayed and disappeared,
others are mere ruins, while a few have been preserved with zealous care and
their hearth-stones still respond to the touch of old-fashioned customs.
There was a time when
homes in this section, resounded with mirth and pleasure, participated in by
old and young, when noble sons and stately daughters spent much of their time in routs and balls, and the rafters of the ancient buildings echoed to the
music and graceful steps of the "Minuet." "The visits of days"
from house to house, the "dining outs," "parties."
"fish fries," and "frolics" occupied their time to the
exclusion of most other matters.
. . .
-Times Dispatch, 20 May 1906
O. M. Chandler (1854-1926) was the long time county surveyor of New Kent. His wife Annie was the daughter of Richard Graves Smith and Margaret Cordelia Smith née Cook. Margaret Smith's father was the Colonel Richard P. Cook mentioned in the article. Colonel Cook purchased Chestnut Grove in 1840. His rank was from his position as commander of the 52nd Militia Regiment, the militia regiment of the upper Peninsula.
