Thomas Sim Lee, the son of Thomas and Christiana (Sim) Lee, was born in Prince George's County, Maryland. He was the great-great-grandson of Richard Lee and the grandson of Philip Lee, who left Virginia to settle in Maryland in 1700. Thomas spent his early years on his father's estate.
Lee began his political service in 1777 as a member of the provincial council, although he had seen military service as major of a battalion from his county. In November 1779, the legislature chose him to be governor. Unlike his predecessor, he entered upon his duties with little prestige, but his administration of difficult problems won him recognition as one of the Revolutionary leaders of his state. To his task, also, he brought unusually well-developed social talents, the exercise of which continued to add to his popularity throughout his life.
When the Continental Army, weakened by hardships and desertions, was threatened with disintegration his first and most important care was furnishing troops and supplies to it. His encouragement enabled Maryland to respond to Washington's appeal for additional troops in 1780. Since such appeals for assistance were continuous throughout the remaining years of the war, his pen was constantly urging sacrifices in order to keep the state up to its requirements. As the trusted friend of Washington, he had information of the plan to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown so that, spurred by hope of victory, he strained every nerve to lend support. To him and to Maryland, it may be fairly claimed, was due much of the success of Greene, Williams, and Howard in the southern campaign.
Shortly after leaving the gubernatorial office in 1783, he was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he appeared during 1783 and 1784. Although he declined to serve in the federal convention of 1787, he consented to sit in the state convention which ratified the Constitution. In 1792, as presidential elector on the Federalist ticket, he voted for Washington for a second term. To him came the unusual honor of being recalled to the governorship after an interim of private life, when he was elected seventh governor of Maryland in 1792.
When he retired, in 1794, he established a winter home in Georgetown, near Washington, which he made a hospitable center for prominent Federalists. He declined two honors which his state would have thrust upon him: election to the United States Senate in 1794, and a third gubernatorial term, tendered him unanimously in 1798. He devoted the remainder of his life to improving his estate, "Needwood, " a tract of fifteen hundred acres in Frederick County, on which he maintained two hundred slaves. Though a man of only respectable talents, his understanding and imagination rose to the challenge of a great crisis, while his social and friendly disposition won him respect and affection.
On October 27, 1771, Lee married Mary Digges, the daughter of a wealthy Maryland landowner, a woman who was to earn distinction by her warm support of her husband's efforts in behalf of the Revolution and by mobilizing the women of Maryland for patriotic service.
