History
The first Europeans to enter what is present-day Lee County were a party of Spanish explorers in 1540, sent by Hernando de Soto, in search of gold.
The county was formed in 1793 from Russell County. It was named for Light Horse Harry Lee, the Governor of Virginia from 1791 to 1794, who was known as "Light Horse Harry" for his exploits as a leader of light troops in the American Revolutionary War. He was the father of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Among the largest early landowners in the county was Revolutionary War officer and explorer Joseph Martin, for whom Martin's Station and Martin's Creek at Rose Hill are named, and who was awarded some 25,000 acres (100 km2) in the county, which he later sold. Martin was among the earliest explorers of the region.
In 1814, parts of Lee County, Russell County, and Washington County were combined to form Scott County. In 1856, parts of Lee County, Russell County, and Scott County were combined to form Wise County, Virginia.
Read more about this topic: Lee County, Virginia
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“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)