Abingdon Manor
The Abingdon ruins have remained largely undisturbed, despite the surrounding construction and expansion of Washington National Airport
In 1778, John Parke Custis son Martha and stepson of George Washington, purchased Abingdon and its 1,000-acre estate from Robert Alexander.
On March 5, 1930, Abingdon, also known as the Alexander-Custis Estate, burned to the ground. Abingdon was an 18th- and 19th-century estate owned by the prominent Alexander, Custis, Stuart, and Hunter families. The estate's site is now on the grounds of the Ronald Reagan National Airport, where you can see indoor and outdoor displays that commemorate its history. Abingdon is the birthplace of Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis (1779-1852), a granddaughter of Martha Washington and step-granddaughter to George Washington. In 1778, John Parke Custis, son of Martha and stepson of George Washington, purchased Abingdon and its 1,000-acre estate from Robert Alexander. He died in the Revolutionary War, and the Washingtons adopted his children. Washington moved some of his enslaved to Abingdon, and they became the enslaved of George Washington Parke Custis Washington’s grandson. The estate changed hands several times, including during the Civil War when the owners, Bushrod and Alexander Hunter, left Abingdon to join Confederate forces. During the war, the Union Army occupied Abingdon, calling it "Camp Princeton." In 1862, Congress enacted "An act for the collection of the direct tax in insurrectionary districts within the United States and for other purposes" and confiscated Abingdon along with nearby "Arlington House" owned by the wife of Robert E. Lee after the owners of each property failed to pay their taxes in person.
By 1928, Abingdon house was dilapidated after several more owners and the partitioning of the land to private owners. Souvenir hunters had removed a cornerstone and parts of a chimney. The Washington Society of Alexandria asked the government to defer the razing of the building so it could be restored. But on March 5, 1930, a fire destroyed the unrestored house. The predecessor of Preservation Virginia stabilized what was left of the ruins and placed a historic marker. During the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked on the Abingdon ruins to preserve what was left and make it available for visitors.
For more than 50 years after that, the Abingdon ruins have mainly remained undisturbed despite the surrounding construction and expansion of Washington National Airport, which opened in 1941.
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