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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—VirginiaLEE, Richard Henry
(1732—1794)
Senate Years of Service:
1789-1792
Party:
Anti-Administration
LEE, Richard Henry, (brother of Arthur Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, and great-grandfather of Blair Lee), a Delegate and a Senator from Virginia; born at “Stratford,” in Westmoreland County, Va., January 20, 1732; after a course of private instruction attended Wakefield Academy, England; returned in 1751; justice of the peace for Westmoreland County 1757; member, house of burgesses 1758-1775; Member of the Continental Congress 1774-1779; sponsor of the independence resolution; a signer of the Declaration of Independence; author of the first national Thanksgiving Day proclamation issued by Congress at York, Pa., October 31, 1777; member, State house of delegates 1777, 1780, 1785; served as colonel of the Westmoreland Militia; again a Member of the Continental Congress 1784-1785 and 1787 and served as President of the Congress in 1784; member of the Virginia convention which ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788; elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1789, until his resignation October 8, 1792; served as President pro tempore during the Second Congress; retired from public life; died at his home, “Chantilly,” Westmoreland County, Va., June 19, 1794; interment in the old family burying ground at “Mount Pleasant,” near Hague, Westmoreland County, Va.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography
; Lee, Richard Henry. The Letters of Richard Henry Lee
. Edited by James Ballagh. 1911-1914. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970; Chitwood, Oliver. Richard Henry Lee, Statesman of the Revolution
. Morgantown: University Library, 1967.
Ballagh, James Curtis, ed. The Letters of Richard Henry Lee
. 2 vols. 1911. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970.
Bowers, Paul Chadwick, Jr. “Richard Henry Lee and the Continental Congress: 1774-1779.” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1965.
Chitwood, Oliver Perry. Richard H. Lee, Statesman of the Revolution
. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1967.
Hoffman, Paul P., and John Lambert Molyneaux, eds. Lee Family Papers, 1742-1795
. University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, 1966. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1989. Microfilm. 8 reels and guide.
Lee, Richard Henry [1794-1865]. Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee
. 2 vols. Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, 1825.
Maier, Pauline. “A Virginian as Revolutionary: Richard Henry Lee.” In The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams
, pp. 164-200. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.
Matthews, John Carter. Richard Henry Lee
. Edited by Edward M. Riley. Williamsburg: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1978.
___. “Richard Henry Lee and the American Revolution.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1939.
___. “Two Men on a Tax: Richard Henry Lee, Archibald Ritchie, and the Stamp Act.” In The Old Dominion: Essays for Thomas Perkins Abernethy
, edited by Darrett B. Rutman, pp. 96-108. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1964.
Nagel, Paul C. The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Family
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Selby, John E. “Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, and the Virginia Constitution of 1776.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
84 (October 1976): 387-400.
Smither, Ethel. “Richard Henry Lee.” Richmond College Historical Papers
1 (June 1915): 38-56.
Virginia, Mary Elizabeth. “Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: A Biography.” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York, Buffalo, 1992.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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