The monument marking the grave of John Custis IV is one of Virginia’s most ambitious examples of colonial funerary art. The elaborately carved pyramidal-topped marble block is decorated with the Custis family coat-of-arms, a drapery-framed inscription, and a human skull motif. It was executed around 1750 by William Colley of Fenn Church Street, London whose name and address is on the tomb. Also in the cemetery is the limestone slab of John Custis (1630-1696). The tombs are located near the Northampton County site of Arlington, the Custis family seat. John Custis IV’s great-grandson George Washington Parke Custis named his Fairfax County plantation, now Arlington National Cemetery, after his Eastern Shore ancestral home. The cemetery is maintained by the Northampton County Branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now Preservation Virginia).
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia