Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/301

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

settled in Mississippi, became legislative councillor, February 4, 1815, and later pre- sided over the deliberations of the legisla- ture. He died in Natchez, Mississippi, in 181 5. He was a brother of William Charles Cole Claiborne, governor of the Mississippi territory in 1802 (q. v.).

Custis, George Washington Parke, was born at Mount Airy, Maryland, April 30, 1781. a son of Col. John Parke Custis, who was a son of Mrs. Washington by her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, and who was aide-de-camp to Washington at the siege of Yorktown, and died November 5, 1781, at the age of twenty-eight years. The early years of Mr. Cu>tis were spent at Mount \'ernon. he pursued his classical studies at St. John's College and at Princeton, and was a member of Washington's family until the oeath of Mrs. Washington in 1802, when he built the .-\rlington House on an estate of one thousand acres near Washington, which he had inherited from his father. In 1852, after the death of his sister, Eleanor Parke Custis, wife of Maj. Lawrence Lewis, he was the sole surviving member <jf Wash- ington's lamily, and his residence was for many years a favorite resort, owing to the relics of that family which it contained. Mr. Custis married in early life, Mary Lee Fitz- hugh, of Virginia, and left a daughter, Mary Randolph, who married Robert E. Lee. The Arlington estate was confiscated during the civil war, and is now held as national prop- erty, and is the site of a national soldiers* cemetery. Mr. Custis was an eloquent and effective speaker in his early days ; he wrote orations and plays, and during his latter years executed a number of large paintings of revolutionary battles. His ** Recollections

of Washington.'' originally contributed to the "National Intelligencer," was published in book form, with a memoir by his daugh- ter and notes by Denson J. Lossing, New ^ork. 1S60. He died at Arlington House, Fairfax county. \'irginia.

Daniel, Peter Vivian, was born in Stafford county, X'irginia, April 24, 1784, a son of Travers Daniel, and a grandson of Peter Daniel, who married a daughter of Raleigh Travers. of the X'irginia house of burgesses. The residence of Travers Daniel, "Crow's Nest." near the mouth of Potomac Creek, was celebrated for its hospitalities, and the family bore an important part in public af- fairs. Peter \'ivian Daniel was graduated from Princeton in the class of 1805, and read law in the office of Edmund Randolph (of Washington's cabinet), whose daughter, Lucy Nelson Randolph, he married in iSii. He was chosen a member of the privy coun- cil of Virginia in 1812, and served part of the time as lieutenant-governor of the state until 1835. I" 1836 President Van Buren appointed him judge of the district circuit court of Virginia, and he was raised to the supreme court of the United States, March 3. 1841, to succeed Mr. Justice Barbour. Judge Daniel was a Democrat, and a per- sonal as well as political friend of Presi- dent Jackson. He was a man of fine taste in literature, a highly accomplished musi- cian, and his judicial opinions are marked by care and clearness. He died at Rich- mond. Virginia. June 30, i860.

Cooke, John Rogers, was born in Ber- muda, in 1788. For more than forty years he was engaged in legal practice in Virginia, earning distinction, and during that period

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