Alfred Lee's father was a midshipman in the British Navy[1] who served with honor and distinction until he left the service when he decided to come to America.

After graduating, Lee was elected deacon of Trinity Church in Norwich Connecticut on June 12, 1838.

His first services as rector were given on September 12 at Calvary church in Rockdale, Pennsylvania, where he lived for three years.

Lee was very well respected in his community because of his demeanor, candor, and resolve; he unanimously won the vote of both the Clerical and Lay Deputies, and was consecrated as the first Bishop of Delaware and the 38th Bishop of America on October 12, 1841, at the age of thirty-four.

In June 1842, Lee was asked to fill in as a temporary rector at St. Andrews parish in Wilmington, Delaware.

In January 1887, Lee caught typhoid fever, the disease that would ail him until his death four months later.

[1] Lee wrote five formal publications: Life of Saint Peter (1852), Life of Saint John (1854), A Treatise on Baptism (1854), Memoir of Susan Allibone (1856), Harbinger of Christ (1857), and Coöperative Revision of the New Testament (1881).

Lee's position against slavery was critical because he was one of the few public figures in Delaware who opposed it.

The gradual strengthening of his anti-slavery claims through his sermons [4][5][6] allowed for his view to slowly seep into the minds of his congregations and followers.

Alfred Lee was a highly regarded man who paved the way for a radical switch in the Episcopal Church's stand on slavery in the 1860s.