Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/437



Captain Robert Gray, a Boston sailor in the "Columbia," owned by Boston nierehiuits trading for furs along the north Tacific coast. Otiier Boston ships also traded along these shores. Even before the Astoria enterprise, three brothers named "Winship, z-esidents of Boston, and others, formed a company for settle- ment and trade on the Columbia, and Nathaniel Winship sailed upon this enterprise in 1801) in the "Albatross." This ship entered the Columbia in 1810, and ascended the river to Oak Point (on tlie Oregon side) nearly north of the village of Marshland.

Hei-e Winship planted a garden and began the building of a foi-t or trad- ing station; but the June rise of the Columbia swept away the foundation, destroyed the garden, and caused Winship to abandon his efforts. These New England ventures doubtless inspired Astor's expedition of the following year.

Hall J. Kelley, a Bostonian, became an active advocate for the occupation of Oregon, as already stated in this chapter.

THE STUDENT AND HIS LINEAGE

At the time when Kelley was most active in his exhortations for the settle- ment of Oregon, a young Canadian giant came down from Stanstead, a bor- der town of the Vermont line, to study at Wilbraham academy. This was Jason Lee, then twenty-four years old. He had been recently converted and determined upon entering the Methodist ministry. Though born in Canada, Jason Lee was of one of the New England families, his father, Daniel Lee, having moved to Stanstead in 1800, to join a colony of New Englanders who were settling that township which they believed would be included in Ameri- can territory when the international boundary was finally settled. Daniel Lee was of Connecticut, and his wife also. John Lee, the English pi-ogenitor of the family, was of Colchester, Essex, and came to America in 1643, in the ship "Francis" of Ipswich. He lived in Cambridge and was one of the com- pany of Rev. Thomas Hooker, which settled and founded the city of Hartford.

His descendants were soldiers in the French and Indian wars, and fought at Concord, Lexington. Long Island, Valley Forge, and Bennington. Colonel Noah Lee, equipped a regiment and fought with Ethan Allen. Captain Na- than Hale, Washington's scout, was a descendant of Tabitha, youngest daugh- ter of John Lee, and Rev. Edward Everett Hale is of the same lineage. Such wei-e the ancestoi-s of Jason Lee.

This young student was six feet, three inches in height, and of correspond- ing herculean proportions. His complexion was ruddy, his eyes gray-blue; an Anglo-Saxon in type, full of the strong virile elements of that race. He attracted the especial attention and care of Dr. Wilbur Fisk. then president of Wesleyan Academy, and when the Methodist church determined upon send- ing a mission to the Indians of the Oregon country. Dr. Fisk recalled Jason Lee, who had returned to Stanstead, and by authority of the Missionary Board of the church he wrote to Lee, offering him the supei'intendency of the mission. The young man had already offered his services to the Wesleyan Missionary Society of London as a missionary to the Canadian Indians, and when Dr. Fiske's letter reached him, he was expecting the appointment from London.