"Although George Washington didn't father any children of his own, he devoted years to caring for two privileged step-children and two step-grandchildren. Most accomplished of those elite offspring was George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857), whom Washington, with his wife Martha, adopted as an infant and raised in the rarefied atmosphere at Mount Vernon.
The young Custis would become known for building, with enslaved labor, Arlington House on the Potomac River, his life-long commemorations of Washington's memory, his patriotic oratory, and marrying his daughter Mary to a promising Virginia soldier named Robert E. Lee.
But those adult accomplishments were hardly preordained. "Washy" or "Wash," as intimates called him when he was a youngster, enjoyed being served by an enslaved work force, sitting for portraits by prestigious painters, and chatting up the nation's most notable personalities…"
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