The Lee family of the United States is a historically significant Virginia and Maryland political family, whose many prominent members are known for their accomplishments in politics and the military. The family became prominent in colonial British America when Richard Lee I ("The Immigrant") immigrated to Colonial Virginia in 1639 and made his fortune in tobacco.
Members of the family include Thomas Lee (1690–1750), a founder of the Ohio Company and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses; Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734–1797) and Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794), signers of the American Declaration of Independence, with Richard Lee also serving as one of Virginia's inaugural U.S. Senators; Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee (1756–1818), lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and Governor of Virginia; Thomas Sim Lee (1745–1819), Governor of Maryland and lastly, and most famous, General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee (1807–1870), commander of the Confederate States Army and its pivotal Army of Northern Virginia for the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Twelfth President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850, served 1849-1850), and ninth Chief Justice Edward Douglass White (1845-1921, served 1894-1921) were also descendants of Richard Lee I. Confederate President Jefferson Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor.
Most recently, family members have marked over two hundred years of political service in the United States, as Blair Lee III (1916-1985, served 1971-1979), a descendant of Richard Henry Lee, served as the second Lieutenant Governor of Maryland when the office was revived, from 1971–1979 and Acting Governor of Maryland from 1977–1979. Charles Carter Lee, a descendant of Henry Lee III and a Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles County, California was named the U.S. team's Chef de Mission by the United States Olympic Committee for the Beijing Olympics. Another side of the family still lives in Texas. Michael Lee had two daughters, Macy and Caroline born in the early 2010s.
History
Richard Lee asserted descent from the Lees of Shropshire and bore a coat of arms which was confirmed in 1660/1 by John Gibbon, Bluemantle Pursuivant of the College of Arms. In 1988, a study by William Thorndal was published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, proving that Richard Lee I was actually the son of John Lee, a clothier, and his wife Jane Hancock; that Richard had been born not at Coton Hall in Shropshire, but in Worcester (some distance down the River Severn); and that several of their immediate relatives had been apprenticed as vintners. The question, then, has been 'how did Richard Lee descend from the family with whom he shared a coat of arms?' The book Collections for the Ancestry of Colonel Richard Lee, Virginia Emigrant, by English genealogist Alan Nicholls presented evidence for the English ancestry of Colonel Richard Lee using contemporary documents, transcribing records left by Richard Lee, his family, and their associates. It also looks at the records left by the Shropshire and Worcester Lee families. These data and additional related findings demonstrate that Richard Lee's Marson ancestors, the wealthiest tradesmen and merchants in Worcester, were likely the cause of his grandfather and father's lives in Worcester. A great-uncle, Richard Lee, was probably the man of the same name, called 'Richard Lee, Gent' buried at Coton Hall's Alveley Parish in 1613.
Colonial Virginia
In the Thirteen Colonies destined to declare independence from British North America and become the United States, the family began when Richard Lee I immigrated to the Colony of Virginia and made his fortune in the cultivation of tobacco. His son Richard Lee II married Laetitia Corbin, daughter of The Hon. Henry Corbin of Rappahannock County, was a member of the House of Burgesses and later King's Council. His son, Richard Lee III, was a cotton broker in London for the family and leased to his brothers Thomas and Henry the plantation he inherited from his father, "Machodoc," for "an annual rent of one peppercorn only, payable on Christmas Day". The Lees first gained wider significance with the aforementioned Thomas Lee (1690–1750). He became a member of the House of Burgesses and later went on to found the Ohio Company, and was the co-executor of his uncle, John Tayloe I's, estate, what became Mount Airy.
Revolutionary War era
Thomas Lee (1690–1750) married Hannah Harrison Ludwell: their children, like the descendants of Thomas Lee's brother Henry Lee I (1691–1747), included a number of prominent Revolutionary War and pre-Revolution political figures.