THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society.
JASON LEE MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.
Editorial Introduction, with Extracts from the Journal of Jason Lee.
Jason Lee was born at Stanstead in what is now the province of Quebec, on June 28, 1803. (Stanstead is situated just across the line from the State of Vermont on the east shore of Lake Memphremagog.) There, after his second return from Oregon, he died on March 12, 1845, and there his remains naturally had their sepulture. His life work, however, had been done in what was then the wilderness of Oregon. Hither he had led the van of missionaries in 1834. Here he had wrought with unremitting labors and had had a large part in planting the seeds of a new civilization. Here, too, in the "Lee Mission Cemetery," near Salem, lay buried his first wife, Anna Maria Pittman Lee and their infant son; also his second wife, Lucy Thompson Lee and their daughter Lucy A. Lee Grubbs. What could be more natural then than that, when changed circumstances had made it practicable, the purpose should be formed to have his ashes brought to Oregon for their final resting place. The Methodist Episcopal Church, under whose auspices he worked so indefatigably, took this upon itself, and on June 15, 1906, the mortal remains of its heroic "missionary colonizer" were deposited in the "Lee Mission Cemetery" at the side of those he loved and in the midst of the scene of his labors that were to have results so momentous.
