Philip Lee Sr.
Philip 'Corbin' Lee, born to the prominent Lee family of Virginia, became a planter in Maryland as well as naval officer and served in both houses of the Maryland General Assembly. He is sometimes considered the forebear of the Maryland or Blenheim Lees, although that manor house was built by his successors. The middle name "Corbin" is a posthumously added matriname used to avoid confusion with the numerous other Lee men named Philip, such as his nephew Philip Ludwell Lee, the eldest son of his brother Thomas Lee, who built Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
Early and family life
The second son born to Laetitia Corbin and her husband Colonel Richard Lee II, at his father's "Machodoc" plantation in Westmoreland County. Both his maternal grandfather Henry Corbin and his paternal grandfather Richard Lee I, were British merchants who came to own large tracts of land in the Virginia colony and had seats on the Virginia Governor's Council, as would this man's younger brother Thomas and successor generations. His eldest brother, Richard Lee III, remained in England after his education and became a merchant with his uncle Thomas Corbin as the firm of Corbin and Lee. They handled tobacco sent from the family's vast plantations in Maryland and Virginia and shipped manufactured goods back. His younger brother Francis Lee became a physician.Career
Local and colonial officeholder
After the Board of Trade assumed responsibility for colonial operations and separated operations for the Colony of Virginia, Philip Lee moved to the Province of Maryland in about 1700, and six years later married his first wife, Sarah Brooke, daughter of a member of the Maryland Governor's Council.Lee was commissioned a captain in the local Prince George's County militia in 1708. By 1710 he was one of the seven Justices of the Peace who adjudicated and administered the county, a position he would hold for at least a decade, although rarely present at sessions after the courthouse was moved from Charlestown to Upper Marlboro, Maryland in 1821. In 1722 Lee accepted the governor's appointment as the local Sheriff. Three years later this man's eldest son, Richard Lee, succeeded Robert Tyler as sheriff, and by 1732 that son was regularly attending court sessions, although this man again served as sheriff in the mid-1730s.
Prince George's county voters elected Philip Lee to represent them in the Lower House of the General Assembly in 1708, and re-elected him until 1722, when he became ineligible for that part-time office because he had become the county sheriff. From 1725 until his death, Lee was a member of the Upper House. In 1732 his fellow councilors were Charles Calvert, John Hall, Col. Richard Tilghman, Col. Mathew Tilghman Ward, John Rousby, Benjamin Tasker and George Plater. Lee was a Justice of the Provincial Court from 1726–1732, and Associate Commissary General in 1727, and the Naval Officer for the North Potomac district from 1727-1744. His father had been naval officer of the South Potomac district, which lucrative position was successively held by his brothers Thomas and Henry, then Henry's son Richard Squire Lee.
Planter
Lee was a planter, who farmed tobacco and other crops using enslaved labor. At the time of his death, Lee owned some and his estate was valued at 4,240 pounds of current money, including 87 slaves, 2 servants, 185 oz. old silver, 1 yawl, and books. His home plantation in Prince George's County was called "Nottingham" plantation, and he also owned plantations in adjacent Charles County and Dorchester County on the other side of Cheseapeake Bay.His father died about fourteen years after Lee's move to Maryland, and this man eventually inherited a tract of land along the Potomac River at Cedar Point called "Lee's Purchase" plantation in Charles County. However, a tenant with a sole and exclusive contract occupied the property between 1705 and 1718, when Lee finally gained legal title to the land, after the Provincial Court finally settled a dispute between his late father and another claimant to the land. After this man's death, Blenheim plantation would be developed there, and became the seat of the Lee Family of Maryland, also known as the "Blenheim Lees."