Eleanor and Elizabeth Parke Custis were two of Martha Washington's four grandchildren. Martha's son, John Parke Custis, born during her earlier marriage to Daniel Parke Custis, had four children by his wife Eleanor Calvert: Elizabeth (Betsey) Parke (1776-1832), Martha (Patsy) Parke (1777-1854), Eleanor (Nelly) Parke (1779-1852), and George Washington Parke (1781-1857).

John Parke Custis died in 1781, and in 1783 his widow Eleanor married David Stuart, an Alexandria physician. The eldest two daughters (Elizabeth and Martha) lived with their mother and stepfather, while Nelly and her brother lived with their grandparents George and Martha Washington.

Short visits between the two homes were frequent, but in the winter of 1795-96, when the letter from George Washington in Philadelphia to Nelly dated 21 March 1796, was written, Nelly was sent for an extended stay with her mother at the Stuart estate of Hope Park, located ten miles west of Alexandria in Fairfax County. George and Martha spent that winter in Philadelphia so that the President could attend the First Session of the Fourth Congress.

Martha (Patty) Parke Custis (1777-1854), the second daughter of John Parke Custis and Eleanor Calvert, was born in the Blue Room at Mount Vernon. Patty married Thomas Peter (1769-1834) on January 6, 1795 at Hope Park. Before she was married, Patty requested a miniature of himself from her step grandfather, George Washington. Painted in Philadelphia, 1794-1795, by Walter Robertson, the miniature is watercolor on ivory and is set in gold, and depicts the General in his continental army uniform. Martha Peter's daughter Britannia later recorded: "When Mrs. Peter was about to be married, she wrote to General Washington and asked him to sit for his miniature for her, -telling him, that the wish nearest her heart was, to possess his likeness. He replied by saying, -he would with pleasure comply with her request; but, -he could never believe the wish nearest a young lady's heart –on the eve of her marriage, was to possess an old man's picture."

Patricia Brady, ed., George Washington's Beautiful Nelly: The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794-1851, xix, 1-3, 20-23.

Information on Martha Parke Custis courtesy of Wendy Kail, Archivist, Tudor Place Historic House and Garden. Tudor Place Archives, Britannia's Gleanings, pp. 96- 97, MS 7, Box 8, F 1. More information on
Martha Parke Custis Peter»