Richard Lee I (c. 1618 – 1 March 1664) was an English-born merchant, planter and politician who was the first member of the Lee family to live in America. Poor when he arrived in the colony of Virginia in 1639, Lee may have been both the colony's wealthiest inhabitant and its largest landholder by the time of his death, owning 15,000 acres (23 sq mi) in Virginia and Maryland. In addition to holding several important government and military posts, he became a merchant, planter and politician and served a term in the House of Burgesses. He managed to negotiate several major political upheavals for his economic gain.
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Personal life
Lee was christened on 22 March 1618. He was the son of John Lee I (c. 1588–1630) and his wife Jane Hancock. He had at least two brothers, John Lee, who became a merchant in London, and Thomas Lee. According to family tradition, genteel ancestors owned Coton Hall in Shropshire, England but more recent genealogical research links both sides of the family to merchants in Worcester, about 20 miles (32 km) south of Coton Hall, and Worcestershire. Lee's father died in February 1630 and his mother remarried but died in 1639, leaving a will which favored her sons John and Thomas rather than Richard. John was apprenticed to a maternal kinsman who was a wine merchant in London, and Richard sailed to the Virginia colony when he was 21.