Caroline Branham

Caroline Branham was born about 1764, enslaved within the Custis “dower” population that Martha Washington Person Martha Washington b. 1731 · d. 1802 Mistress of from her 1759 marriage to until her death in 1802, and first First Lady of the United States. Through her dower Custis estate she brought into the Washington … brought into the Washington household upon her 1759 remarriage to George Washington. From a relatively young age she served as Martha’s personal chambermaid at 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway Place 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway Five-farm plantation on the Potomac owned by George Washington from 1761 until his death in 1799; home to Washington, his family, and more than three hundred enslaved people. … , a position of household proximity that placed her in daily contact with both Washingtons through the Revolutionary and presidential years ^[1] Source 1 Mount Vernon Ladies' Association archive Manuscript .

On the night of 13–14 December 1799 Caroline was among the household enslaved people summoned to George Washington’s bedchamber during his final illness. Tobias Lear’s contemporaneous account of Washington’s last hours names her explicitly as one of those present, lighting the fire and waiting in attendance in the small hours of the morning. She was therefore an eyewitness — and the only known surviving Black eyewitness — to the death of the first President of the United States ^[2] Source 2 Tobias Lear, "Journal Account of Washington's Death" (1799) Manuscript .

Washington’s 1799 will manumitted the enslaved people he held in his own right, with effect upon Martha’s death; Martha executed that manumission early, on 1 January 1801. Caroline was not among those freed: as a member of the Custis dower estate held in trust for Martha’s grandchildren, she was outside Washington’s legal authority to free. After Martha’s 1802 death the dower enslaved people were divided among the Custis heirs, and Caroline passed to G. W. P. Custis Person G. W. P. Custis b. 1781 · d. 1857 Step-grandson of , raised at Mount Vernon, builder of Arlington House, and father-in-law of . ’s household at Arlington House. She lived another four decades and is buried at 118 North Washington Street Place 118 North Washington Street Alexandria's Georgian-style Episcopal parish church, consecrated in 1773; pew owners included George Washington and, decades later, the Lee family. in Alexandria, where a marker recognising her is part of the parish’s documentation of the Washington-Custis household’s enslaved community.