Martha Washington child Frances Custis
Marriage to Daniel Parke Custis
In 1749, Dandridge met Daniel Parke Custis, the son of a wealthy planter in Virginia. They wished to marry, but the father of Dandridge's prospective groom, John Custis, was highly selective of what woman would marry into the family's fortune. She eventually won his approval, and Dandridge married Custis, who was two decades her senior, on May 15, 1750.: 2  After they were married, Custis moved with her husband to his residence at White House Plantation on the Pamunkey River. Here they had four children: Daniel, born 1751; Frances, born 1753; John, born 1754; and Martha, born 1756. Daniel died in 1754 and Frances died in 1757.: 4  While her father had owned 15 to 20 slaves, her husband owned nearly 300, making him one of the largest slaveowners and wealthiest men in the Virginia colony.Custis became a widow at the age of 26 when her husband died of heart failure. Upon his death, she inherited the large estate that he had previously inherited from his father. After his death in 1757, she received one third of his estate outright, and the remaining two thirds were granted to their two young children. The total inheritance amounted to approximately $33,000 (equivalent to $982,246 in 2021), 17,000 acres of land, and hundreds of slaves.: 2  The legal and financial matters of the inheritance presented a considerable burden on Custis while she was raising her two surviving children and grieving the loss of her husband and her children as well as that of her father.: 4  She was also left with the responsibility of managing the farmland and overseeing the well-being of the slaves.: 2  According to her biographer, "she capably ran the five plantations left to her when her first husband died, bargaining with London merchants for the best tobacco prices".
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