CHAPTER 1: ANCESTRY

WESTMORELAND IS ONE OF A group of counties in Virginia lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. It was originally a portion of Northumberland County, and, though small in geographical extent, its historical record is great. Within a space of thirty miles in length and an average width of fifteen miles were born statesmen, soldiers, and patriots whose lives and characters adorn the pages of American history, and whose courage, genius, and learning are the proud inheritance of those who dwell to-day in the powerful republic of America. Here, from England, in 1665, settled the great-grandfather of the “Father of his country.” Americanized, he became an extensive planter, soldier, magistrate, member of the House of Burgesses, and a gentleman whose virtue and piety were undoubted. In his will he expressed his “sorrow for his sins, and begged forgiveness from Almighty God, Saviour, and Redeemer.” Here his son, Lawrence, and his grandson, Augustine, were born. The second wife of Augustine was Mary Ball, and their first child, born February 22, 1732, was named George Washington.

This son was destined to establish, with stainless sword, a free republic, and by great skill, unfaltering faith, and sublime patriotism transfer power from king to people. A grateful country acknowledged his illustrious services, and he was chosen the first President of the United States. This little county was not satisfied with the high honor. On April 28, 1758, James Monroe was born within its limits. He became a distinguished citizen, served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, was a member of the General Assembly of Virginia, of the Congress of Confederation, and the Virginia Convention called in June, 1778, to consider the Federal Constitution, a United States Senator, envoy to France, England, and Spain, twice Governor of his native State, Secretary of State in Mr. Madison’s administration, and President of the republic for two terms from 1817 to 1825-thus adding, by a long and meritorious public career, additional renown to the county of his birth, his State, and his country. James Madison, fourth President of the United States, was born in the adjoining county of King George seven years before Monroe, and but a few miles distant. To this section, from England, came, too, the Lees, who belonged to one of the oldest families in the mother country, its members from a very early date being distinguished for eminent services to sovereign and country. By the side of William the Conqueror, at the battle of Hastings, in 1066, Lancelot Lee fought, and a later descendant, Lionel Lee, followed Richard Coeur de Lion, taking part in the third crusade to Palestine, in 1192, at the head of a company of “gentlemen cavaliers,” displaying great bravery at the siege of Acre.

The Lees of Virginia, “a family which has, perhaps, given more statesmen and warriors to their new home than any other of our old colonial progenitors,” came of an ancient and distinguished stock in England, and neither country can boast a nobler scion than the subject of these memoirs. General Lee had never the time or inclination to study genealogy, and always said he knew nothing beyond his first American ancestor, Colonel Richard Lee, who migrated to Virginia in the reign of Charles I. He believed, however, from his inherited traditions and the Coat of Arms borne by his progenitors in this country, that his family came originally from Shropshire, England; and when the world rang with his name and fame, and he paid the usual penalty of greatness by being besieged with reiterated queries respecting his pedigree, this was all he would say. Others, however, took more interest in the subject; he was claimed by the Lees of Cheshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks, and Essex, as well as of Shropshire, and much was said and written pro and con both before and after his death.

In recent years his genealogy has been very persistently and thoroughly investigated by those learned in antiquarian research, and their conclusion is in favor of Shropshire, though in 1663 the first emigrant, Colonel Richard Lee, made a will in which he states that he was “lately of Stafford Langton in the county of Essex.” Now, as we have every reason to believe that he was a younger son, the parental nest was probably full; neither was it such a “far cry” from Shropshire to the near vicinity of London, a remove preparatory, possibly, to the still greater one across the Atlantic. He certainly used the arms of the Shropshire Lees.

Colonel Lee’s devotion to the House of Stuart was notorious, and had been often proved even by the manner of dating his will — viz., “The 6th of February, in the sixteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, Charles II, King of Great Britain, etc., and in the year of our Lord 1663.” Being Secretary of State and Member of the Privy Council in Virginia, he had assisted that stanch royalist, Governor Berkeley,in holding the colony to its allegiance, so that after the death of Charles I, Cromwell was forced to send troops and armed vessels of war to reduce it to subjection. Unable to resist, they made a treaty with the “Commonwealth of England,” wherein Virginia was described as an “Independent Dominion,” this treaty being ratified in the same manner as with a foreign power.

Berkeley was then removed and another governor appointed; but the undaunted Colonel Richard Lee hired a Dutch vessel, freighted it himself, went to Brussels or Breda, surrendered up Sir William Berkeley’s old commission — for the government of that province-and received a new one from his present Majesty, Charles II, “a loyal action and deserving my commendation.” 2 It is also said that he offered the exiled monarch an asylum in the New World. It is certain that on the death of Cromwell he aided Governor Berkeley in proclaiming Charles II in Virginia King of England, Scotland, France, Ireland, and Virginia two years before his “restoration” in England. In consequence, the motto to the Virginia Coat of Arms was “En dat Virginia quintam” until after the union of England and Scotland, when it was “En dat Virginia quartam.”

The inscription on the tombstone of the second Richard Lee, at Burnt House Fields, Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland County, describes him as belonging to an “ancient and noble family of Morton Regis in Shropshire.” It is clearly established that the three earliest representatives of the family in America, Colonel Richard Lee and his two eldest sons, claimed this Shropshire County descent.

It is our purpose to trace the Lees in America, not in England. The first emigrant, Colonel Richard Lee, is described as a man of good stature, of comely visage, enterprising genius, a sound head, vigorous spirit, and generous nature; and when he reached Virginia, at that time not much cultivated, he was so pleased with the country that he made large settlements with the servants who accompanied him. To his credit it may be added that when he returned to England, some years afterward, he “gave away all the lands he had taken up, and settled at his own expense, to the servants he had fixed on them, some of whose descendants are now possessed of very considerable estates in that colony.”

After remaining some time in England he again visited Virginia with a fresh band of followers whom he also established there. He first settled in York County in 1641, where he was burgess and justice in 1647, and when later he removed to the “Northern neck,” between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, he filled the offices of Secretary of State and Member of the Privy Council. Of his loyalty to the house of Stuart we have already spoken, and of his various voyages, indicating in themselves his “enterprising genius.” When he made his will in London, in 1663, he was returning on what proved to be his last voyage. He had with him his large, young family, his eldest son John not yet being of age; but he was so determined to establish them in Virginia that he ordered an English estate — Stratford — worth eight or nine hundred pounds per annum, to be sold and the money divided between his heirs. He died soon after his return, and as John, the B. A. of Oxford, never married, Richard, the second son, succeeded to the homestead in Westmoreland. He also graduated at Oxford in law, and was distinguished for his learning, spending almost his whole life in study. On October 15, 1667, as “Major Richard Lee, a loyal, discreet person and worthy of the place,” he was appointed member of the council. He was born in 1647, married Letitia Corbin, and died in 1714, leaving five sons and one daughter. His eldest son, Richard, the third of the name, married and settled in London, though his children eventually returned to Virginia. Philip removed to Maryland in 1700, and was the progenitor of the Lee family in that State. Francis, the third son, died a bachelor, but Thomas, the fourth, with only a common Virginia education (it could not have been much in those days), had such strong natural parts that he became a good Latin and Greek scholar, long after he was a man, without any assistance but his own genius. Though a younger son, with only a limited patrimony, by his “industry and parts” he acquired a considerable fortune, was a member of the council, and so well known and respected that when his house in Westmoreland burned down Queen Caroline sent him a large sum of money out of her privy purse, with an autograph letter. Stratford was rebuilt on an imposing scale,...