William D. Fenton

“ Gill has so well said, "the first to die in the Oregon Country." Upon her tombstone you will read to-day at Mission Cemetery, Salem, these words: "Beneath this sod, the first broken in Oregon for the reception of white mother and child, lie the remains of Ann Maria Pittman Lee." This man and this woman together will sleep at last. The work which they did has outlived them. She in her sphere, and he in his, performed well their part. Jason Lee was by birth, education and training a devout enthusiast and loyal patriot and the prophet of a new State. ”

“ I quit the scenes of my youth, the land of my birth, and in a far and distant land among strangers I expect to dwell. Soon the rolling billows of the tempestuous ocean, and the towering mountains, rugged steep, will intervene between us, and perhaps we see each others face no more. ”

“ The primal object in the mind of Jason Lee may not have been an intent to assert and protect the sovereignty of the United States. This was perhaps incidental to his chief purpose—that of missionary effort and desire to establish the Christian religion in these remote parts of the world.
Lee was of New England stock, although immediately from Canada at the time of his coming to the Oregon Country. The spirit of adventure, discovery and conquest was everywhere dominant. ”

“ In the battle of life we may be drawn as conscripts, but our courage or our cowardice, our gentleness or our cruelty, depends upon ourselves. 'The Admiralty,' wrote Nelson, when expecting to command the finest fleet in the world, 'may order me a cock-boat, but I will do my duty.'" Such was the misfortune and such the spirit of Jason Lee.
When he left Oregon it was his intention to wait at the Islands for a vessel going to New York or Boston, and with the expectation that Mr. ”

“ His life illustrates again the truth of the statement that to achieve success there must be a single purpose, and energies must not be wasted or dissipated in attempting to do well more than one thing.
"There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many. ”

“ Senator Linn followed this formal action on his part by a speech on the 22d of February, 1839, supporting a bill to provide for the protection of citizens of the United States then in the Territory of Oregon, or trading on the Columbia River. It is a matter of history that Jason Lee was the unseen hand behind this first active effort at Washington, and he was regarded in a special sense as the noncommissioned representative of the government of the United States. ”

“ In addition to which there were about forty-five men settled in the country who had Indian wives and half-breed children."
The memorial drawn up before Lee left Oregon was presented to the Senate by Linn of Missouri on January 28, 1839, and on December 11, 1838, Linn, as you will recall, had introduced a bill in the Senate for the occupation of the Columbia, or Oregon, River, and to organize a territory north of 42 degrees and west of the Rocky Mountains to be called Oregon Territory. ”

“ Cardinal Richelieu was not glaringly wrong, therefore, in the opinion that an unfortunate and an imprudent person are synonymous terms. Every man is placed, in some degree, under the influence of events and of other men ”

“ On November 20, 1833, in Forsyth Street Church in New York a farewell meeting was presided over by Bishop Hedding and addressed by Dr. McAuley of the Presbyterian Church. The religious spirit of New England and the Atlantic seaboard was concentrating a determined effort in the direction of the Indian country. By direction of the Board of Missions the Lees visited Nathaniel J. Wyeth, who had just returned to Boston from his first attempt to establish a trading post on the Lower Columbia River. ”

“ She came and paid the sacrifice with her life. She was married to Jason Lee on the 16th day of July, 1837, not far from where Salem now stands. She died on the 26th of June, 1838, and is buried in the old mission cemetery. In that sacred spot where we are about to reinter all that is mortal of Jason Lee, lies buried the wife of his youth and the infant son for whose birth her life was a sacrifice, the first white child born in the State of Oregon, the first white woman married, and as Mr. ”

“ The men chosen to accompany Jason Lee were Cyrus Shepard of Lynn, Massachusetts, thirty-five years of age, Philip L. Edwards, a Kentuckian, lately of Richmond, Missouri, Courtney M. Walker of Richmond was engaged also for a year to assist in the establishment of the mission. Edwards was only twenty-three years old. They left New York early in March, 1834, proceeding west leisurely, and Jason Lee here and there lectured as he traveled. ”