Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Syphax family is a prominent American family in the Washington, D.C., area. A part of the African-American upper class , the family is descended from Charles Syphax and Mariah Carter Syphax , both born into slavery.
Maria Syphax was manumitted by Custis in 1826, along with her two children, and that year he granted her 17 acres of his Arlington plantation. He later bequeathed freedom by his will for her husband Charles Syphax. The family was established as landowning free people of color before the Civil War.
[4] [a] Charles Syphax was held as a slave until freed in 1857 by his next master, Robert E. Lee, under the terms of the George W. P. Custis will. [3] With his family, William Syphax settled in the District of Columbia when he was 11 years old. [2] The city had a large community of free people of color, and the Syphaxes became part of the elite.
As a relative of Charles Syphax, Douglas Syphax was related to an African-American family in Virginia who were granted land in Arlington County, Virginia. In the 1940s it became part of Arlington National Cemetery. The family was descended from Martha Washington (1731–1802), wife of President George Washington (1732–1799). [1]
Maria lived and worked at Arlington as a slave until 1826, when she married Charles Syphax, a slave who oversaw the dining room of Arlington House. (It was a religious ceremony only; enslaved people could not legally marry.) [ 26 ] Soon after Maria's marriage, Custis freed her and gave her a 17-acre (7-hectare) plot in the southwest corner of ...
Syphax was a son of Charles Syphax and Maria Carter Syphax. His mother was the natural daughter of an enslaved woman, Ariana Carter, and white planter George Washington Parke Custis. Custis was the only grandson of First Lady Martha Washington, by her first marriage. Custis permitted his mixed-race daughter and her chosen spouse, Charles Syphax ...
McKee was the last surviving grandchild of the Syphax-McKee family from Philadelphia. It was subsequently reported in a New York Post article on March 25, 1948, that, although McKee had been accepted as a Euro-American man for 45 years, he was the African-American grandson of Civil War veteran Col. John McKee. Syphax/McKee died of heart failure ...
Floor plan of Abbey Mausoleum. Abbey Mausoleum was built in 1924 by the U.S. Mausoleum Company. [1] [2] The land was owned by the Syphax family.[1] [3] Maria Custis Syphax, the matriarch of the family, was the mulatto daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington and founder of the Arlington Estate on the banks of the Potomac River (later the home of Robert E. Lee). [4]