Martha Washington (previously Custis, née Dandridge; June 2, 1731 O.S. – May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, who was a Founding Father and the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, she served as the inaugural first lady of the United States, defining the role of the president's wife and setting many precedents that future first ladies observed. During her tenure, she was referred to as "Lady Washington". Washington is consistently ranked in the upper half of first ladies by historians.
Martha Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis on May 15, 1750. They had four children, only one of whom survived to adulthood. She was widowed in July 1757 at the age of 26, inheriting a large estate, and remarried to George Washington in January 1759 at the age of 27, moving to his plantation, Mount Vernon. Her youngest daughter died of epilepsy in 1773, and the Washingtons were unable to conceive any children of their own. Washington became a symbol of the American Revolution after her husband was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. During the war, she played a maternal role, visiting encampments when fighting stalled each winter. Her only surviving child, John Parke Custis, died from a camp illness during the war. After the war ended in 1783, she sought retirement at Mount Vernon, but returned to public life when her husband became president of the United States in 1789.
Lady Washington took on the social role of the president's wife reluctantly, becoming a national celebrity in the process. She found this life unpleasant, feeling that she was restricted and wishing for retirement. In addition to hosting weekly social events, Washington understood that how she composed herself would reflect on the nation, both domestically and abroad. As such, she struck a careful balance between the dignity associated with a head of state's wife and the humility associated with republican government. The Washingtons returned to Mount Vernon in 1797, and Washington spent her retirement years greeting admirers and advising her successors. She was widowed for a second time in 1799, and she died a few years later in 1802.
Martha Dandridge was born on June 2, 1731, on her parents' tobacco plantation, Chestnut Grove Plantation in New Kent County the Colony of Virginia. She was the oldest daughter of Frances Jones, herself the daughter of the politician Orlando Jones and granddaughter of an Anglican rector, and John Dandridge, a Virginia planter and county clerk who emigrated from England. She had three brothers and four sisters: John (1733–1749), William (1734–1776), Bartholomew (1737–1785), Anna Maria "Fanny" Bassett (1739–1777), Frances Dandridge (1744–1757), Elizabeth Aylett Henley (1749–1800), and Mary Dandridge (1756–1763). As the oldest of eight, including one sister that was 25 years her junior, Dandridge played a maternal and domestic role beginning early in life. Dandridge may have also had an illegitimate half-sister born into slavery, Ann Dandridge Costin, and an illegitimate white half-brother, Ralph Dandridge.
Dandridge's father was well connected with the Virginia aristocracy despite his relative lack of wealth, and she was taught to behave as a woman of the upper class. Dandridge received a relatively high-quality education for the daughter of a planter, though it was still inferior to that of her brothers. She took to equestrianism, at one point riding her horse up and down the stairs of her uncle's home and escaping chastisement because her father was so impressed by her skill.
Frances Jones Dandridge (August 6, 1710 – April 9, 1785), nicknamed Fanny, was Martha's mother. Fanny was born in 1710 on a plantation near Williamsburg near the capital on Queen's Creek. Fanny had an older brother, Lane Jones, born in 1707. Fanny's father, Orlando Jones, was a Burgess for New Kent County in 1718 in the House of Burgesses, the leading legislative body in Colonial Virginia. Her mother (m. January 31, 1702), Martha Macon Jones (Saint Peter, New Kent County, 1687-Macon's Island, Williamsburg, May 4, 1716), was the daughter of Colonel Gideon Macon, died when Fanny was only six years old. Her father soon remarried. His second wife, Mary Elizabeth William Jones, became the sole parent of the two children just three years later when Orlando Jones died. Orlando and Mary had no children together. A year later, Orlando's widow Mary Elizabeth married John James Flourney and her stepchildren lived with them in Williamsburg. The union of Flourneys brought more children into the household. While the Jones children lived with their guardians, the Flourneys had a right to use the income from the Queen's Creek property for their household. Anna Maria Jones Timson, the sister of the late Orlando Jones sued twice for custody of her niece and nephew but was denied. When Lane Jones reached the age of eighteen, he legally emancipated himself and moved in with his aunt in Timson's Neck. In 1726, when Fanny was sixteen, she also sued for emancipation. She did not move in with her aunt but instead lived with a planter in New Kent. Her mother's parents had been from that region and a number of Macon aunts and uncles lived there. She may have lived with Unity West Dandridge, her mother's half-sister, who had married William Dandridge in 1719.
Fanny Jones married John Dandridge on July 22, 1730. Fanny inherited ten enslaved people and land in King William County from her father, which she brought to the marriage. The Dandridges lived at the Chestnut Grove plantation on the bank of the Pamunkey River in New Kent County, Virginia. Located about 35 miles from Williamsburg, it was a two-story frame house that was surrounded by fruit and chestnut trees. Dandridge immigrated to the Virginia Colony in 1714 or 1715. Born to John and Ann Dandridge of England, he immigrated with his older brother William Dandridge (1689–1743). He and his wife Unity West Dandridge, an heiress, lived on the opposite bank of the river from Chestnut Grove at his Elsing Green estate in King William County, Virginia.
The Dandridges had eight children, of whom Martha was the first. She lost a number of children through miscarriages and stillbirths.
After her husband's death in 1756, Fanny and three of her children–William, Mary, and Elizabeth—continued to live at Chestnut Grove. Fanny was 46 years old and had just given birth to her last child that year.At age 22, William took over management of the plantation. Bartholomew listed Chestnut Grove for sale in 1768. Fanny moved to Pamocra, where she died in April 1785, within days of the death of her son Bartholomew, and they were buried in the one-acre graveyard.
One of their sons, Bartholomew Dandridge, followed in his father's footsteps and became Clerk of Courts in New Kent County. And he, like his father, also served as both vestryman and churchwarden, but at the Blisland Parish rather than the St. Peter's Parish. John Dandridge had two illegitimate children: Ann Dandridge Costin and Ralph Dandridge.
Marriage to Daniel Parke Custis (1749–1757)
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. After they were married, Custis moved with her husband to his residence at White House Plantation on the Pamunkey River, where they had four children: Daniel Jr. (1751–1754), Frances (1753–1757), John (1754–1781), and Martha (1756–1773). Daniel Parke Custis was one of the wealthiest men in the Virginia colony as well as one of the largest slaveowners, owning nearly 300 slaves.Custis became a widow at the age of 26 when Daniel Parke Custis died (probably from a severe throat infection). Upon his death, Custis inherited the large estate that her husband had previously inherited from his father, John Custis. She also 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 $1,167,043 in 2025), 17,000 acres of land, and hundreds of slaves. 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 losses of her husband, two children, and her father. She was also left with the responsibility of managing the farmland and overseeing the well-being of the slaves. 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".