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Richard Lee the Immigrant
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Richard Lee was the ancestor of the Lee Family of Virginia, many of whom played prominent roles in the political and military affairs of the colony and state. Known as Richard Lee the Immigrant, his ancestry is not known with certainty. Since he became one of Virginia’s most prominent tobacco growers and traders he probably was a younger son of a substantial family involved in the mercantile and commercial affairs of England. Coming to the New World, he could exploit his connections and capital in ways that would have been impossible back in England.

Richard Lee was born about 1613.

Richard Lee was born in England, but no on knows for sure exactly where. Some think his ancestors came from Shropshire while others think Worcester. (Indeed, a close friend of Richard Lee said Lee’s family lived in Shropshire, as did a descendent in the eighteenth century.) Attempts to tie his ancestry to one of the dozen or so Lee familes in England (spelled variously as Lee, Lea, Leight, or Lega) that appeared around the time of the Plantagenets have been unsuccessful.

Richard Lee apparently came to the Jamestown colony in late 1639 or early 1640. Tradition says he accompanied Sir Francis Wyatt (c. 1575–1644) who in 1639 was returning to the colony to serve a second term as governor.

When Richard Lee first came to Virginia, he settled at Jamestown, as did almost all colonists. However, by 1640 he had acquired his first tract of land, at Tindal’s Point in present-day Gloucester County. Tindal’s Point is on the north side of the York River across from where Yorktown was later established. In 1642 Lee patented a 1,000-acre tract on Poropotank Creek, a tributary of the York about twenty miles above the river’s mouth. The patent was obtained by Lee’s paying for the transportation of seventeen indentured servants to the colony to work the tract. On Poropotank Creek Lee planted tobacco and opened trade with the Indians.

Lee moved to the south side of the York after the Indian Massacre of 1644, staying there until 1653 when he moved back to Poropotank Creek. Although his Gloucester lands were declared off limits by a treaty with the Indians, Lee kept accumulating acreage until he had about 1,500 acres. Calling his estate “Paradise,” Lee set up an Indian trading post and tobacco warehouse. Later he moved to present-day Northumberland County and, and he also acquired land in present-day Fairfax county. He was living on Dividing Creek near present-day Kilmarnock when he died. By then Lee owned more than 15,000 acres of land in Virginia, land in Maryland, and a large estate outside of London, at Stratford-Langton. He undoubtedly was more wealthy and held more land than anyone in Virginia.

Richard Lee was appointed to a number of offices in the Jamestown colony, including Clerk of the Quarter Court in 1641; Attorney General in 1643; Sheriff and Burgess of York County in 1646 and 1647, respectively; Secretary of State in 1649; and the Governor’s Council in 1651. Lee kept the official records at Jamestown, issuing marriage and travel and hunting licenses, and recording wills and land titles. A royalist loyal to Charles I and a close ally of Governor Sir William Berkeley, Lee is said to have made frequent trans-Atlantic trips, some in the governor’s name. On one of those trips, after Charle’s execution, Lee purportedly met with Charles II to exchange Berkeley’s old commission for a new one and to invite the exiled king to Virginia. When Berkeley was thrown out of office during the Interregnum Lee naturally lost his positions as secretary of state and Councillor, although the records laternamed Lee as a person “useful and faithful to the Commonwealth.”

Richard Lee held the office of colonel of the Northumberland militia, the militia being the only military force in the Virginia colony in the seventeenth century.

Richard Lee married Anne Constable (b. 1622), a native of London whom he met in England and who may have come to Virginia when he did. Little is known about Anne, and some have even questioned whether her surname was even Constable. However, if so, Anne was a daughter of Londoner Francis Constable who had connections with Sir John Thorowgood, one of King Charles I’s personal attendants. It is unclear whether Richard and Anne married in London or at Jamestown. When Richard died Anne was given a life-right to their home on Dividing Creek, where she is said to be buried. Anne remarried, to a Edmund Lister, and disappeared from the records.

Yes, between 1645 and 1656 Richard and Anne Lee had at least ten children, including two sets of twins. Six boys and two girls survived infancy. They were:

John (1645–1673), the founder of the Mount Pleasant line of the family. John Lee earned a medical degree from Oxford University.

Richard II, known as the Scholar (1647–1714), the founder of the Lee Hall line of the family. He was educated at Oxford University and after returning to Virginia held a number of public offices, including a seat on the Governor’s Council, burgess, receiver of the Potomac River, colonel of the Westmoreland militia. He also was captured and held hostage during Bacon’s Rebellion. Some of Richard Lee’s sons also held prominent positions in Virginia, especially Thomas Lee, President of the Council, agent for the Fairfax Proprietory, founder of the Ohio Company, and the builder of Stratford Hall.

Francis (c. 1648–1714), the family business agent in London. Francis and his wife Tamar, whose surnamed is not known, had at least seven children, at least one of whom, daughter Anne, survived to adulthood and married Henry Watson. Francis became a successful mechant in England and later the family sent a nephew, Richard III (son of the Scholar) to apprentice with him.

William (born c. 1651–c. 1697), who died without marrying. William, to whom his father willed his Maryland lands, served as a family business agent in Virginia as well as a justice and a captain in the militia. Like his father, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. William caused some excitement when he left his entire estate to a young widow, Mary Heath, who after entering into the inheritance remarried, to one Bartholomew Schreever. William Lee’s estate returned to the family after Richard the Scholar convinced the Virginia courts that the Immigrant’s will had limited his legacies to William for the term of his life only.

Hancock (1653–1709), the founder of the Ditchley line of the family. Hancock married two times, to Mary Kendall and to Sarah Allerton (b.1671), and was the father of seven children. President Zachary Taylor was the great-grandson of Hancock and Sarah Allerton Lee, and Taylor’s daughter, Sarah, was the first wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Another of Hancock’s descendent was Supreme Court Justice Edward Douglas White.

Elizabeth (Betsy; 1654–1714), who married first Leonard Howson (b. 1648) of Northumberland County and after his death John Turberville (1650–1728) of Lancaster County. Betsy Lee and Leonard Howson married in 1670 and had at least five children, including: Elizabeth; William (1672–1702); Leonard, Jr. (b. 1673); Hannah (1677–1713), who married Francis Kenner in 1706; and John (1679–1714). One of Hannah Kenner’s sons married the daughter of George Eskridge, who was Mary Ball’s guardian and whom George Washington was named after. Betsy Lee and her second husband had one child, George Turberville (1694–1742), who lived at Hickory Hill in Westmoreland County.

Anne, married Captain Thomas Youell, with whom she had at least three daughters that survived to adulthood, married, and had children of their own. The surnames of Anne Lee Youell’s sons-in-law were English, Watts, and Spence.

Charles (c. 1656–c. 1700), the founder of the Cobbs Hall line of the family. Charles Lee married Elizabeth Medstand, with whom he had four children, and lived where his parents had first settled at Dividing Creek, on land still held by the family.

From these children descend the Lee Family, now numbering in the thousands.

Early on, Richard Lee’s labor force consisted of white indentured servants who in exchange for seven years work in the tobacco fields had their passage paid to the New World. That changed by 1660 when Lee laid claim to 4,000 acres of land for bringing into the colony eighty black laborers, all of whom presumably were imported as slaves.

Yes, Richard Lee excelled in business. From his first arrival, Lee sought out governmental and political offices that offered lucrative returns. Although he was extremely successful in acquiring land and settling plantations, which necessitated him bringing to Virginia dozens of indentured servants, he thought of himself as a merchant and trader. He carried on a vibrant fur trade with the Indians and invested in at least two cargo ships, the Susan and the Elizabeth and Mary, that ferried goods and people between England and the New World. In addition, Lee conducted business in London.

Richard Lee was dead by the time Nathaniel Bacon led an army of planters against Governor Sir William Berkeley. Lee’s son Richard Lee the Scholar was a strong supporter of Berkeley and hence became the object of the insurgents.

Richard Lee died in 1664. Lee is buried at the cemetery at Cobbs Hall, near the original mansion built site of his grandson, Charles Lee. Lee had stipulated in his Last Will and Testament that his remains “be disposed of whether by sea or land according to the opportunity of the place.”