Richard Henry Lee

Ancestor Number

A068703 »

Date of Birth

January 20, 1732

Place of Birth

Stratford Hall, Westmoreland County, Virginia

Date of Death

June 19, 1794

Place of Death

Chantilly Plantation, Westmoreland County, Virginia

Spouse(s)

Anne Aylett, Anne Gaskins Pinkard

Children

Thomas, Ludwell, Mary, Hannah, Anne, Henrietta, Sarah, Cassius, Francis Lightfoot

American Revolution Service

Signer of Declaration of Independence. County LT in Stafford & Westmoreland Cos; Delegate to Continental Congress

State of Service

Virginia

Donor

Tree sponsored by 30 Virginia Daughters

Richard Henry Lee was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the House of Burgesses, and he served in the first Continental Congress, and as a U.S. Senator from Virginia.

He was named a delegate to the First Continental Congress. Although Lee served as a tax collector earlier in his life, he did understand what “Taxation without Representation” meant to the Colonies. He agreed with Patrick Henry when Henry spoke against the Stamp Act on May 29, 1765, in the House of Burgesses. Later he was censured by the House about it and defended himself on July 15, 1766. After being censured Lee wrote the Westmoreland Resolution of 1776, binding citizens to support “our lawful sovereign, George the Third…so far as is consistent with the preservation of our rights and liberty.” This Resolution would later influence those who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Richard Henry Lee, head-and-shoulders portrait, left profile. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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Lee was later elected to a Williamsburg convention opening August 1, 1774.

After witnessing Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech, Lee wrote to Henry urging Virginians to lead the colonies to force independence, quoting many of the works in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” with few changes.

During the Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee, as the head of the Virginia delegation, made the powerful motion on June 7, 1776: “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connections between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” Immediately after, he shared ideas with the Drafting Committee and chaired a second committee to write the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution for the United States. He was unable to sign the Declaration on July 4h, but did later sign it along with his brother, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and many others, in August.

In 1789, Lee and William Grayson were elected as Virginia’s first U.S. senators, encouraging the first 10 amendments. He ended his work when Congress adjourned on May 7, 1792.