Lee is a town located in Southeastern New Hampshire in the Seacoast region of the state. The town is situated in Southern Strafford County and encompasses a total area of 20.2 square miles, only .2 of which is water. As of the 2010 United States Census, Lee was home to 4,330 people.
The town of Lee was first settled in 1657 and was originally part of Dover township. In 1735, Durham (which included the area now known as Lee) separated from Dover; it wasn?t until 1766 that Lee was established as its own entity. Governor Benning Wentworth incorporated the area as a town that year. While Lee is mostly made up of water, the area does boast portions of a number of bodies of water, including Lamprey River, North River, Oyster River and Wheelwright Pond, where King William’s War occurred in 1690. The town is entirely in the Piscataqua River watershed.
Lee is governed by an elected Board of Selectmen. The town has a full-time police department, a full-time fire department and volunteer emergency medical services. The area’s top employers are Market Basket, S & J Transportation, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Sunny’s Restaurant, Dunkin’ Donuts, Mobil Mart, Wentworth Douglas Hospital and Sunoco Mart. Over the years, Lee has been home to several notable people, including TV personality and game show host Tom Bergeron, U.S. Congressman Daniel Meserve Durell and author Ralph Fletcher.
Children in Lee attend schools in the Oyster River Cooperative School District, which also serves the nearby towns of Durham and Madbury. The district includes one preschool program, two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. For recreation, residents of Lee can take advantage of the town’s municipal parks, tennis courts, youth organization and sports leagues, boating and fishing marinas, campgrounds, bicycle trails, local beaches and more.