Lee arrived at New York in May, but what transpired between himself and the missionary board is unknown. He employed himself during the year in soliciting funds for the Oregon Institute, which he was destined never to see again, for he died March 2, 1845, at Lake Memphremagog, in the province of Lower Canada. His last act was to make a small bequest to the institution for which he was laboring, and for the advancement of education in the country of his adoption.[1]
In the books of the missionary writers, "Jason Lee of precious memory" is alluded to only in his character as director of a religious mission, no reference ever being made to his political schemes. The reason is obvious. To impute to him all that belonged to him would be to acknowledge that the missionary society in New York was right in dismissing him for misrepresentation of the requirements of Oregon, and a misappropriation of a large amount of the funds of the society; therefore, that part of his career which best illustrates his talents is left entirely out of the account, and appears only in the reports of congress and the private manuscripts of McLoughlin. That he had the ability to impress upon the Willamette Valley a character for religious and literary aspiration, which remains to this day; that he suggested the manner in which congress could promote and reward American emigration, at the same time craftily keeping the government in some anxiety concerning the intentions of the British government and Hudson's Bay Company, when he could not have been ignorant of the fact that so far as the country south of the Columbia was concerned there was nothing to fear; that he so carefully guarded his motives as to leave even the sagacious McLoughlin in doubt concerning them, up to the time he left Oregon—all of these taken together exhibit a combination of qualities which were hardly to be looked for in the frank, easy-tem-
- ↑ Hines' Or. and Institutions, 156.
