Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Lee-Morgan-Pitts family. Papers, 1798-1955. Accession 42619. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Karolyn Cleveland, Cary, North Carolina, 31 March 2006.

Biographical Information

Richard Bland Lee (1761-1827) was a farmer, lawyer, and politician from Fairfax County, Virginia, and the brother of Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee (1756-1818). He had six children with wife Elizabeth Collins (1768-1858), including son Richard Bland Lee (1797-1875), who became a colonel in the U.S. Army. Brother Henry Lee and his second wife, Anne Hill Carter (1773-1829), were the parents of General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), who married Mary Randolph Custis (1808-1873) in 1831. The younger Richard Bland Lee married Julia Anna Marion Prosser (d. 1886) in 1826. Nine of their children lived to adulthood, including Julia Eustis Lee (1830-1910); Evelina Prosser Lee (1832-1905), who married Edwin Cecil Morgan (1827-1867) in 1853; and Myra Gaines Lee (1841-1906), who married Charles Napoleon Civalier (d. ca. 1867) in 1864.

Evelina Lee and Edwin Cecil Morgan had six children, four of whom died in infancy. The surviving two were sons Edwin Lee Morgan (1855-1920) and William Prosser Morgan (1861-1913). Edwin Lee Morgan married Mary Van Zandt (1860-1940) in 1893. William Prosser Morgan married Caroline Pattison Bryan (b. 1863) in 1880. They had one daughter, Evelina Lee Morgan (b. 1880), and resided in Alexandria, Virginia. Evelina married J. Herbert Taylor in 1903.

It appears that Caroline Bryan and William Morgan divorced. Caroline stayed in Alexandria, married Henry Pitts (b. 1843) and with him had two children, Henry Garnett Pitts (1890-1965) and George Bryan Pitts (b. 1894). Both sons were called by their middle names. In 1917, Garnett Pitts married Florence Bouton (b. 1891), the daughter of Charles and Alice Bouton, and sister of Ethel Bouton (b. 1888), all of Patterson, New York. The couple initially resided in New York City, but moved to Washington, D.C., at some point. While there, they welcomed son George Bryan Pitts (also referred to by his middle name), born in 1923. By 1928, the young family had moved back to New York City.

Scope and Content

Papers, 1798-1955, of the Lee-Morgan-Pitts family of Fairfax County and Alexandria, Virginia, and New York City. Represented family members begin with Richard Bland Lee (1761-1827), and continue on to the daughter of his great-grandson, William Prosser Morgan (1861-1913), with wife Caroline Pattison Bryan (b. 1863). Also represented are Caroline's children and other family from her second marriage, to Henry S. Pitts (b. 1843). Items include correspondence; Lee and Morgan genealogies; a Morgan family Bible record; a teacher's lengthy account of her 1856 visit to Arlington House and Washington, D.C.; copies of letters written by Richard Bland Lee (1797-1875) while serving in New Mexico and the second Seminole War; photographs; newspaper clippings; and the baby book of George Bryan Pitts (1923- ).