Arlington House

Arlington House

On a Virginia hillside rising above the Potomac River and overlooking Washington, D.C., stands Arlington House. The 19th-century mansion seems out of place amid the more than 250,000 grave sites that stretch out around it. Yet, when construction was completed in 1802, the 1,100-acre estate was not intended to become Arlington National Cemetery and eventually have one of the most famous grave sites in the world, that of President John F. Kennedy, sixty yards below it on the slope of the hill the mansion is on top of.

The mansion, which was intended as a living memorial to George Washington, was constructed by the first president’s adopted grandson, George Washington Parker Custis, who himself was a child of Martha Washington by her first marriage.

In its years as a lived-in home its most famous resident was Major General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army of the Civil War. Lee lost the home during the War when federal troops crossed the Potomac and took possession of its choice 1,100-acre location and established a military base there, which today is known as Fort Myer.

On June 15, 1864, the United States government appropriated a substantial portion of the grounds for use as a military cemetery, and named it Arlington National Cemetery.

Source: www.arlingtoncemetery.org

Arlington House has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966.

Camera: Canon Rebel XTi 400D

This photograph is “as is” from the camera, with no post processing

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