The original Arlington Plantation on Old Plantation Creek was established by John Custis in the very early 1600s.  By inheritance those lands passed into the hands of Martha Custis who with her marriage to George Washington became Martha Washington.  Thereafter, it passed by inheritance to Robert E. Lee, the well known Civil War General.  Along the way it was decided to move the seat of the family’s interests up along the Potomac River nearer to the emerging nation’s capital where access to the political processes would be easier. 

 Indeed, the current day city of Arlington, Virginia (near the capital) and Arlington National Cemetery are where the transplanted Arlington Plantation was located on the Potomac River.  The Arlington Plantation on the Potomac River was last privately owned by Robert E. Lee before his lands were confiscated by Union forces during the War Between the States.

The land involved in the Preserve on Old Plantation Creek (both the building sites themselves and the surrounding land) is quite historical in  nature, yet still pristine-pure and completely unspoiled.  All of the Preserve was either a part of or immediately next to the original Arlington Plantation.

Of the entire Eastern Shore, Northampton County, the southernmost county, is the most historical. Indeed, when the Declaration of Independence was read from the courthouse steps in 1776 the courthouse was already well over a hundred years old.  And the land involved in this project, bordered by the north and south branches of Old Plantation Creek is perhaps the most historic.  With continuous land records back to the 1620s (even before the Pilgrims) and with its relationship to the original Arlington Plantation owned by both George Washington and Robert E. Lee this land occupies a very special place in history.

The Preserve is truly a special place to own now and pass on to future generations.