Martha Washington's Birthplace

New Kent County · dedicated 1998 · Rte. 249, in front of old courthouse, in New Kent Courthouse

About two miles northeast stood Chestnut Grove, the plantation home of John and Frances Jones Dandridge, where Martha Dandridge, the eldest of eight children, was born on 2 June 1731. She lived there until 15 May 1750, when she married Daniel Parke Custis and moved to his plantation, White House, on the Pamunkey River. According to tradition, the wedding took place at Chestnut Grove. Custis died in 1757, and two years later Martha Custis married George Washington. Chestnut Grove, a two-story frame house with six rooms, burned in 1926.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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