Person:Thomas Lee (58)

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Thomas Lee (Virginia colonist). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Col. Thomas Lee (–November 14, 1750) was a planter and politician in colonial Virginia. He was a member of the Lee family, a political dynasty which included many figures from the colonial era until the late twentieth century. Lee became involved in politics in 1710 and became the resident manager of the Northern Neck Proprietary for Lady Catherine Fairfax. After his father died, Lee inherited land in Northumberland and Charles County. Lee later acquired vast holdings in what are now Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William, and Loudoun Counties. These properties were developed as tobacco plantations.

When Lee married Hannah Harrison Ludwell in 1722, he benefited by the connections of the already established Harrison family of Virginia. A year later he would become a member of the House of Burgesses. After Lee's home was burnt down by criminals, he lost almost all of his possessions and a fair sum of money. With donations received from Caroline of Ansbach and British officials, he built his new home on the Potomac River, naming it Stratford Hall. Four years later in 1733, he was appointed to the Governor's Council,the upper house of the General Assembly. In 1747, he founded the Ohio Company of Virginia with fellow Virginian colonists who wished to expand Virginia's territory into the Ohio River Valley. For a period of less than a year, in 1749, he became the de facto royal governor of Virginia in place of the absent William Gooch. Lee was favored for an appointment as governor by George II but died in 1750.

Lee, Thomas, president of the council, and acting governor from the death of John Robinson, September 3, 1749, to his own death, November 14, 1750, was born in Westmoreland county, 1693 . He was son of Colonel Richard Lee, who was one of the council of Virginia, and grandson of Colonel Richard Lee, who came to Virginia about 1642 and was secretary of state. Thomas Lee received a common education, "yet having strong natural parts, long after he was a man he learned the languages without any assistance but his own genius, and became tolerably adept in the Greek and Latin." He was long a member of the house ob burgesses and the council, and when John Robinson died became by seniority president of the council and as such acting governor. In 1744 he was appointed by Governor Gooch to serve as commissioner with William Beverley to treat with the Six Nations. At Lancaster Pennsylvania, they made a treaty by which the Indians released their title to lands west of the Alleghanies. Thus having cleared the way, Lee became the leading factor in 1749 in the organization of the Ohio Company, which had as one of its objects the severing of the French settlements in Canada and Louisiana. The company obtained from the king a grant of 500,000 acres of land west of the Alleghanies, between the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. It established trading posts, which, being seized by the French, were the direct cause of the French and Indian war. It is said that the king appointed Lee lieutenant-governor in 1750, but he died before the commission reached him. He as married in 1721 to Hannah, daughter of Colonel Philip Ludwell, and had by her six sons, five of them eminently distinguished for their services during the American revolution — Thomas Ludwell Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, William Lee, and Dr. Arthur Lee — and two daughters. His death occurred at Stratford House, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, November 14, 1750; and in the absence of a commissioned governor he was succeeded by Lewis Burwell, member of the council next in seniority.
-----
[cos1776 Note: 1693 = pos error. Does not match other cited sources.]

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Ohio Company. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

[List of Stockholder's in the Ohio Land Company]
:Thomas Lee, President of Company
:Nathaniel Chapman, Treasurer
:John Mercer, Secretary and General Counsel
:George Mercer, Company Agent to England
:Robert Dinwiddie, Duke of Bedford
:John Hanbury, London Merchant
:Augustine Washington Jr.
:William Trent
:Lawrence Washington
:George Fairfax
:Thomas Cresap
:The Ohio Land Company sent Col. George Washington and William Trent into the area to hold onto the lands that the Company had been granted. In 1754, William Trent constructs a fort. But in April, the French take the fort, naming it Fort Duquesne.