George Hay Lee (1807 – November 20, 1873) was a Virginia lawyer and politician who served on the Virginia Court of Appeals from 1852 until Virginia declared secession in 1861.

Early and family life

Born in

Winchester, Virginia Winchester is the most north western independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Frederick County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Winchester wit ...

in 1807 to one of the

First Families of Virginia First Families of Virginia (FFV) were those families in Colonial Virginia who were socially prominent and wealthy, but not necessarily the earliest settlers. They descended from English colonists who primarily settled at Jamestown, Williamsburg ...

. Lee attended the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

in 1827-28 and studied law under Judge Henry St. George Tucker at

Winchester Law School Winchester Law School was a privately run institution for legal education. Operated by Henry St. George Tucker Sr., it was open from 1824 to 1831. History In 1824 Henry Tucker was named Chancellor of the Equity Court of the Fourth District, w ...

in Winchester. He married twice and had six children, three daughters and three sons.

Career

Lee crossed the Appalachian mountains and began his legal practice in

Clarksburg, West Virginia Clarksburg is a city in and the county seat of Harrison County, West Virginia, United States, in the north-central region of the state. The population of the city was 16,039 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Clarksburg micro ...

, the seat of what was then Harrison County, Virginia, in 1831. He formed a joint practice with celebrated trial attorney Mathew Edmiston, of

Weston Weston may refer to: Places Australia * Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Weston, New South Wales * Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra * Weston Park, Canberra, a park Canada * Weston, Nova Scotia * W ...

in Lewis County. Harrison County judges selected Lee as the Commonwealth Attorney (prosecutor), and he also once served as assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, and later as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District. In 1839 Harrison county voters elected and re-elected Lee as one of the county's delegates to the Virginia House of Delegates. In 1840, Lee owned three enslaved people, two women younger than 23 and one man, but appears absent from the slave schedules associates with the 1850 and 1860 federal censuses. In 1852, Virginia legislators elected Lee to the

Court of Appeals A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

, judge

Briscoe Baldwin Briscoe Gerard Baldwin (January 18, 1789 – May 18, 1852) was a Virginia attorney, politician, and jurist, who served four terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, at the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-1830, and a decade in the ...

of Staunton having died in office. As the American Civil War began and Virginia voted to secede, Judge Lee did not sit on the court after the April 1861 term when the state of

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

was formed as a result of the northwestern counties of Virginia refusing to join the remainder of the state in joining the Confederacy. The separation of West Virginia was recognized in 1866, and another western Virginian elected to the seat.

Death and legacy

Lee died at his home in Clarksburg, West Virginia on November 20, 1873.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, George Hay 1808 births 1873 deaths Justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia Virginia lawyers Virginia state court judges Politicians from Winchester, Virginia American slave owners 19th-century American judges 19th-century American lawyers Winchester Law School alumni Lawyers from Clarksburg, West Virginia University of Virginia alumni Politicians from Clarksburg, West Virginia Judges of the Court of Appeals of Virginia