Jason Lee was a Canadian Methodist Episcopalian missionary and pioneer in the Pacific Northwest.
Background
Jason Lee, a descendant of John Lee who settled in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1641, was the son of Daniel and Sarah (Whittaker) Lee. The father was a Revolutionary soldier. In 1798 the family moved from Massachusetts to a home in the neighborhood of Stanstead, Quebec, then considered a part of Vermont, where Jason was born.
Education
He attended the Wilbraham Academy, Massachussets, where he won the friendly interest of its president, the Rev. Wilbur Fisk.
Career
Lee was converted to Methodism at the age of 23. In 1830-1832 he served as a minister to the Wesleyan Methodists in Stanstead and adjoining towns. In the latter year he attended the session of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, by which he was ordained deacon and later elder. About the same time the missionary society of this church decided to establish a mission in the Flathead country, and on June 14, 1833, Lee was chosen as its head.
Accompanied by his nephew, the Rev. Daniel Lee, and three lay assistants, he left Independence, Missouri, with Nathaniel J. Wyeth's second expedition, April 28, 1834. On September 15 the party arrived at Fort Vancouver, where they were welcomed by Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. For various reasons the Flathead project was abandoned, and on October 6 four of the missionaries settled on the Willamette, ten miles northwest of the present Salem, Oregon. In a short time the little colony was securely established.
In the winter of 1836-1837 Lee, in association with William A. Slacum, a purser in the navy, then on a tour of investigation of the northwest coast, drew up a petition for the establishment of a territorial government, which Slacum carried to Washington. In June 1837 an additional party, including Dr. Elijah White and his wife and Anna Maria Pittman, arrived from New York by sea. New missions were established in the Clatsop country and at The Dalles, on the Columbia.
On March 26, 1838, Lee left on an overland journey to the East. He arrived in New York at the end of October, visited Washington, where he presented a settlers' petition for territorial organization, drawn up just before his departure, and during the next year addressed many meetings in behalf of his mission. On October 9, 1839 with a party of fifty--the so-called Great Reinforcement--sailed from New York for the Columbia, arriving at its mouth on May 20, 1840. In the summer of the same year he had a disagreement with Dr. White, who left the mission and returned East. His work, in spite of adverse circumstances, went energetically on. By the end of the year, however, the character of his labors was undergoing a marked change. Though the mission at The Dalles had exerted a restraining influence on the thieving of the neighborhood Indians, the hope of Christianizing the savages of the Oregon country was coming to be recognized as futile. There followed a decline of missionary work and a concentration of efforts toward the material upbuilding of the settlements and the promoting of their political interests. In all these activities, as promoter, developer, business adviser, and constant advocate of the Americanization of the country, Lee took a leading part.
On February 7, 1841, he presided at the preliminary meeting for territorial organization, held at Champoeg; and though the movement lapsed for a time, he was influential in reviving it in the spring of 1843 and in bringing about the completion of a provisional government on July 5 of that year. He was also the chief mover in the fostering of education. As early as January 1841, he formed the plan that resulted, the following January, in the founding of Oregon Institute, later renamed Willamette University.
New problems decided him to return East for further aid. Sailing on February 3, 1844, he learned at Honolulu that various criticisms of his conduct of the mission had caused the home office to supersede him in his post. He took ship for San Blas, crossed Mexico to Vera Cruz, and by way of New Orleans hurried to New York, where he arrived late in May. A conference of the Mission Board exonerated him of blame, but he was not restored to his post.
In August his health failed. He returned to his native town, where he contracted a severe cold, from the effects of which, late in the winter, he died. In 1906 his remains were taken to Oregon, and on June 15, with appropriate ceremonies, were reinterred at Salem. Lee's character has been variously appraised, and his influence in the settlement and acquisition of Oregon is a theme of endless controversy.
Achievements
Connections
On July 16, 1837 Lee was married to Miss Pittman. His wife and infant son had died on June 26, 1838. In July 1839 he married Lucy Thomson, of Barre, Vermont. His second wife had died in Oregon, March 20, 1842.