Lee Resolution, July 2, 1776

"The Lee Resolution (also known as "The Resolution for Independence") was the formal assertion passed by the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776 which resolved that the Thirteen Colonies in America were "free and independent States", separated from the British Empire and creating what became the United States of America.

 News of this act was published that evening in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and the next day in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

The Declaration of Independence is the formal document which officially announced and explained the resolution, approved two days later on July 4, 1776.

The resolution is named for Richard Henry Lee of Virginia who proposed it to Congress after receiving instructions from the Virginia Convention and its President Edmund Pendleton. Lee's full resolution had three parts which were considered by Congress on June 7, 1776."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Resolution


"In the U.S., the family began when Richard Lee I emigrated to Virginia and made his fortune in tobacco. His son Richard Lee II married Leticia Corbin, daughter of The Hon. Henry Corbin (colonist) of Rappahannock County, was a member of the House of Burgesses and later King's Council.

His son, Richard Lee III, was a cotton broker in London for the family and leased to his brothers Thomas and Henry the plantation he inherited from his father, "Machodoc," for "an annual rent of one peppercorn only, payable on Christmas Day".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_family