Richard Lee I

Richard Lee I was the first member of the Lee family to live in America. Poor when he arrived in Virginia in 1639 on a ship with the colony's newly reappointed governor and the woman who became his future wife, by the time of his death, Lee may have been both the Virginia Colony's wealthiest inhabitant as well as its largest landholder. Lee had a varied career, for in addition to several important government and military posts, he became a merchant, planter and politician who served one term in the Virginia House of Burgesses as well as managed to negotiate several major political upheavals—both successfully and to his economic advantage.