John Custis (burgess)

His father, in addition to farming, held various local offices and eventually won appointment to the Governor's Council and remarried twice more but without issue.

John Custis III was raised mostly at the mansion his father built and called Arlington plantation, which he had purchased from Thomas Burdett, whose daughter Alicia had become his second wife (but died probably in 1680).

[2] When John III was a child, his father not only held several local offices, but during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 he financially and militarily assisted Virginia's Governor William Berkeley.

Custis often appears as an attorney in early Northampton County records, including successfully representing the rector in Teackle v. Parker late in the century.

[4] He also invested in real estate near the northern boundary of Virginia's Eastern shore and Chincoteague Island, often with fellow planter and politician William Kendall as partner.

[7] When his father received an appointment to the Governor's Council in 1677, his position as justice of the county court (which held administrative as well as judicial functions) went to John Custis III.

John Custis III began serving in the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly on July 19, 1700, and held that office until his death, although his last recorded appearance was on April 30, 1713.