Thomas Ludwell Lee

Thomas Ludwell Lee, Sr. (December 13, 1730 – April 13, 1778) was a Virginia planter and politician who served in the House of Burgesses and later the Virginia Senate, and may be best known as one of the editors of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Early life Lee was born on December 13, 1730, probably at Stratford Hall Plantation, Westmoreland County, Virginia to Thomas Lee and his wife Hannah Harrison Ludwell. Born into the First Families of Virginia (as described below), he was the couple's third son and the second to survive into adulthood. Although the couple's firstborn son died shortly after being christened "Richard Lee", in February 1727 Hannah Ludwell Lee bore Philip Ludwell Lee (1727-1775) and named him for her beloved father. The man later known as "Colonel Phil" would be the first of her sons to survive, and he returned to Virginia from England (where he had graduated from Eton and was studying law) upon his father's death in late 1750. Col. Phil then assumed responsibility for this boy and his other orphaned younger siblings, as well as operated Stratford Hall and associated plantations he inherited mostly pursuant to primogeniture (including more than 12,000 acres in Northumberland and Stafford Counties in Virginia as well as acreage on Maryland's Eastern Shore and two islands) and many slaves (including over 100 at the 2800 acre Stratford plantation alone). Colonel Phil would be named to Virginia's Council of State in 1757, and increased his landholdings in 1763 by marrying his heiress ward, but he became unpopular with his younger siblings for the slow pace at which he settled their father's estate, contrasted with his lavish entertainments at Stratford Hall. This brother, Thomas Ludwell Lee, was the other co-executor of their father's estate, inheriting land in Stafford county, 50 slaves and his father's gold watch, but remained in England until 1756 to finish his legal studies at the Inner Temple.