Richard LEE

  Noted events in his life were:

• Biography. Notes for RICHARD LEE, (THE FOUNDER):
- Col. Richard Lee
- 2nd oldest in his family
- Born - Coton Hall in manor of Nordley Regis, England
- Came to America from England by 1636 (York Co Records by Fleet, Vol I,p92 - Thomas Davis of Warwicksquack Co, later became Isle os Wight 1637, to Ambrose Meador and John White of Pagan Shore, 50, 18 Jul 1636. Wit Thomas Holt and Richard Lee).
Richard was from Shropshire, a county bordering Wales and Located about 100 miles northwest of London. Christened 3/22/1618. After his cousin John brought him down from Shropshire to learn the ways of London, Richard sailed for Virginia. This was shortly after his mothers death and 21st birthday.
Richard arrived in VA about 1639. He began life in the colony as clerk of the quarter court, within the Secretary of state's office. His close affiliation with Sir William explains Richard Lee's progress as a public figure. He was a member of the House of Burgesses, high Sheriff, Colonel in the militia, secretary of state and was named in 1651 to the Council of State.
Richard not only profited from his public office but also by trading with the Indians for fur and skins. He moved from one triumph to another, taking care that his early land patents designated him as "gentleman". At the end of his life he held high office & owned about 15,000 productive acres in VA & MD. His plantation was called Paradise. He also had many slaves and much livestock.
Richard made survival & prosperity his concerns, which bequeathed comfort, power, and wealth to his children and grandchildren. On his death he was one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Virginia.

Source: The book, "Shaping a Nation Stories of the Lees", by Ludwell Lee Montague.
Richard Lee came to Virginia before November 26, 1636, in company with the new governor, Sir Francis Wiatt, to be clerk of the Quarter Court at Jamestown. Not long thereafter he married the Governor's ward, Anne Constable. Subsequently he was Attorney General and colonial Secretary of State under Sir William Berkeley. In addition to these occupations, he was, from his first arrival in Virginia, actively engaged in the Indian trade, trading for furs as a factor for his cousin, John Lee of London.
Richard Lee's first home in Virginia was on leased land near Gloucester Point. He was driven from it by the Great Massacre of 1644. He and his trading shallops were actively employed in the ensuing military operations against the Indians on York River, but he still found time for Indian trade. Unable to deal with the York River tribes, be sought our those of the Northern Neck, who were still at peace with the English.
Although Richard Lee had been steadily patenting land since 1642, he did not become a planter until 1652 when , a Secretary of State, he negotiated the capitulation of Virginia to the Commonwealth of England and then retired from public office. Thereafter he spent almost as much time in London as in Virginia. He was not only developing his plantations in Gloucester County, but also operation as a London merchant trading in Virginia.
It has been supposed the Richard Lee established his residence on Dividing Creek in 1651, but the supposition is contradicted by the evidence which has subsequently come to light. Considering the dates at which he is known to have been at Jamestown, in Gloucester, or in London, he cannot have settled here until the spring of 1656. His tenth and last child, Charles Lee, was born here in May of that year. The original Lee home here until the spring of 1656. His tenth and last child, Charles Lee, was born here in May of that year. The original Lee home here stood near were you turned from the Cobbs Hall lane into the woods surrounding the graveyard.
Richard Lee had been in residence here only two years when he again returned, alone, to London. There he purchased an estate in suburban Stratford, with the intention of making it his home. His purposes seem to have been the better management of his mercantile business in London and the better education of his children.
In the fall of 1659 Richard Lee returned from London to put his affairs in Virginia in charge of a steward and to move his family to their new home at Stratford. The notes left by this steward, John Gibbon, show that the Indians were then still a conspicuous feature of the local scene. The future herald was much impressed by Indian royalty: not only the neighboring King of Wicomico, but also the King of Chicacoan, who came to visit the Lees on Dividing Creek, the King of Chiskiak, who lived near Lee's Paradise plantation in Gloucester, and the famous Queen of Pamunkey, met in the course of an introduction to the fur trade on York River.
In February 1661, after five years in residence on Dividing Creek, the Lee family moved, bag and baggage, to its new home in England. Three years later, Richard Lee returned, accompanied only by his eldest son, John, to have a look at his Virginia plantations. Apparently he contracted a fatal illness on shipboard, for he reached Dividing Creek a dying man. He was buried here, in the garden of his last Virginia home.
In accordance with his will, Richard Lee's family returned to Virginia. His widow lived here with her second husband, Edmund Lister, and the younger children. Eventually the youngest, Charles Lee, inherited this place. It was his son, Charles, who abandoned the original Lee home and built the first Cobbs Hall, about 1720. However, the Cobbs Hall family continued to use the only burying ground in the garden of the older home. In 1761 Leeanna Lee caused an enclosing wall to be erected. She was not only the widow of Charles Lee III, but was herself a great-granddaughter of Richard Lee and Anna Constable. The wall you see before you was built where the foundations of her wall were found.
Source: The Society of the Lees of Virginia, August 1999 pg 14 Appendix E, Richard Lee, the Emigrant - New Research, By Alan J. Nicholis
Richard Lee arrived in Virginia in or just before 1640. He as initially employed as the clerk of the quarter court. In 1642 Richard married Anna Constable and between 1643 and 1656 they had six male and two female children. In 1643 Richard became Attorney General for Virginia. In 1649 he was made Secretary of State and from 1651 he was titled Colonel. Richard became a great landowner and merchant in Virginia and also owned a substantial property in England. Richard died in Virginia on 1st March 1664.

[http://www.octhouse.com/leereport.html]

Richard married Anne CONSTABLE in 1641 in Jamestown, VA. (Anne CONSTABLE was born in 1622 in ENGLAND and died after 1663 in VA.)