Fifty Years in Oregon was written by Theodore T.
Geer, a grandson of Joseph Carey Geer and a shirttail ancestor of
ours.
I have put much of the book on
this website. I started because several
chapters describe the early roots of our family history in Oregon. I
kept going because
I found many of the chapters from this perspective on the early
settlers and the history of Oregon to be quite
interesting.
I do not now and never did belong to the Methodist
Church, but certainly no loyal Oregonian breathes with soul so dead as to deny
for a moment the great obligation his State owes to that organization for its
great work during the decade between 1830 and 1840 in making the initial
occupancy of the Oregon Country. To be sure, the early Methodist missionaries
were governed first by a desire to convert the .Indians to Christianity – vain
effort, in the main – but they were Americans, imbued with an unswerving
attachment to their country's institutions, and as a counter influence to the
Hudson Bay Company wrought mightily in the great conflict which finally brought
victory to American sovereignty.
No matter whether you believe in the perseverance of the
saints, the administration of baptism by sprinkling or whether you stand for
complete immersion; no difference if you are a supporter of the doctrine of
original sin, foreordination and election – even if you are confirmed in your
opinion that shouting during the culminating proceedings of a revival meeting is
not only indecorous but bordering on the absurdly emotional, you have no
business to set up your claim to any degree of sincere love for Oregon's early
history if you fail to take off your hat to a Methodist when you meet him, if
not for his sake, then, at least, for the sake of the great religious
organization he represents.
And among those early Methodist missionaries, head and
shoulders above all others stands Jason Lee. This distinction will be
unhesitatingly accorded him by all his church fellows. In effective work along
lines which bore immediate fruit, and which not only required great personal
sacrifices but finally snapped the thread of his strenuous life, he stands
pre-eminent. He was so wholly in earnest and so persistently zealous in his
chosen work that one might almost term him a fanatic, but this would be very
unfair. He was rather a man wrapped up in his chosen work, and being nervously
active and full of restless ambition to accomplish his great purpose, he
abandoned all the comforts of civilization and insisted upon being sent to the
wilds of distant and practically unknown Oregon. To be sure, Hall Kelley had
devoted nearly twenty years of his life to promoting emigration to Oregon before
he finally came here, but he remained scarcely six months; Lee on the other hand
founded a mission, started a school (which ultimately became the present
Willamette University) at Salem, opened several farms, made the first move
toward the agricultural development of the new country, and employed every hour
of his time until his unfortunate death in spreading the gospel not only of
religion, but of those earthly activities which make for the uplift of men and
women.
In all these things, it is impossible to go beyond Jason
Lee in Oregon history. Back of him, there is a void – no schools, no churches,
no agriculture, no homes. Indeed, there was no civilization. There were
trappers, fur-traders, a few white men with native wives, adventurers without
purpose in life. But Lee, with his companions, P. L. Edwards, Cyrus Shepherd,
and his nephew, Daniel Lee, joined the expedition guided by Nathaniel Wyeth of
Massachusetts, left their homes in New England in March, 1834, plunged into the
wilderness on the western borders of Missouri on April 24, and arrived in Oregon
on October 1. On the sixth day of that month they pitched their tents on the
banks of the Willamette River, ten miles below where Salem now is, and proceeded
to found the Methodist Mission, from whence at once began to radiate the
influences of Christianity for the first time in all the Oregon Country!
In paying this brief, but deserved, tribute to Jason Lee as
the first potent factor in the development of my beloved native State, I am
reminded of a story related by Dr..Whitcomb Brougher, until recently the popular
pastor of the White Temple Baptist Church of Portland. He had preached a sermon
one Sunday in which he referred to the primitive Jews in a way that called forth
innumerable protests from local people of that persuasion, and the daily papers
were printing many communications combating his interpretation of Jewish
characteristics, as portrayed in ancient times. The Jewish paper in Portland
lent a hand in the attack, with the result that Dr. Brougher replied in a letter
in the Oregonian which bristled with a vigorous defense; but this only
invited a renewal of the discussion. Finally, he announced that on the following
Sunday he would preach a sermon, the text of which would be the Jewish race,
cordially inviting all the Hebrews in Portland to attend. The invitation was
responded to quite generally, many of the most prominent Jews in the city
occupying seats here and there throughout the congregation.
Dr. Brougher welcomed them in his introductory
remarks in that hospitable manner for which he is justly noted, and in the
course of his sermon highly eulogized the excellent qualities of Jews who have
figured prominently in the world's progress in politics, literature, science and
religion.
“And when it comes to the matter of well-established
remote ancestry,” said the Doctor, “the Jews have us all beaten out of sight.
Most of us are inclined to be vain if we can trace our ancestry back as much as
three generations on both sides of the house; and if one of us can name his
grandfathers and grandmothers in a direct line for a century he is quite likely
to boast of the fact in an insufferably egotistical manner. But, no matter what
you can do in that direction, don't mention it when in the presence of a Jew,
for he has you skinned a mile in the matter of ancestry. He will at once refer
you to Abraham or Moses-and then where are you? You would be like the man who
was drowned in the Johnstown Rood, after fighting the fierce waves successfully
for nearly an hour. After a most heroic effort he nearly escaped, but was again
overtaken by the surging waters. After three victories over the angry torrent he
was finally drawn under and lost his life. Upon entering the pearly gates he was
quite a hero and a crowd gathered around him to listen to his narration of his
thrilling experiences. When he had finished describing how he escaped the first
time, his listeners with one voice said: 'What a remarkable escape! What an
awful experience!'
“But an old man who stood apart from the others merely said: 'Oh, pshaw!'
“Again the man gave the details of his second success over
the rising current, and the crowd repeated its exclamations, but the old man
only said: 'Oh, pshaw!'
“When the man had finished the account of his third
triumph over the swift-running torrent, and had used all the adjectives at his
command in his portrayal of the awful event, the audience again expressed its
astonishment that any man could have fought against such odds for so long a
time, but the old man merely voiced his increasing disgust by repeating for the
third time: 'Oh, pshaw!'
“At this juncture a man who had stood by and taken in the
entire scene turned to St. Peter and said: 'Who is that old fellow over there
who says “Oh, pshaw” every time the man tells about how he fought the waves in
the Johnstown flood for so long a time?'
“ 'Whom do you mean?' inquired St. Peter. 'That fellow over
there with the long beard?'
“ 'Yes,' said the man."
" 'And you don't know him?' returned the keeper of the
keys. 'Why, that's Noah!'“
Of course it may seem somewhat irreverent to couple this
story with anything relating to a man so very sedate and serious as Jason Lee,
but it aptly illustrates the utter tameness of the undertakings of those who
came to Oregon after him, when we recall that when he and his four companions
made their way up the Willamette valley on that day in October, 1834, there was
not a civilized American settlement anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains. All
was wilderness and savagery solitude and barbarism. Those who came after them
had at least “The Mission” to give them a welcome and a temporary home until.
they were able to find a permanent location.
Surely the man who would make the journey to such a ,
country under such conditions as then prevailed, led by the motive which
governed Jason Lee, had the zeal and inflexible purpose which should have given
him a passport into that mysterious realm where the perseverance of the saints
is a sufficient warrant for unquestioned admission!
I have been where the old Mission house stood scores of
times, as the spot is but fifteen miles from my birthplace and the farm which
was my home for thirty years; It was a beautiful location, about a half a mile
from the Willamette River, and that section has ever since been known as
“Mission Bottom.” At present, it consists of several large farms noted for their
wonderful fertility. But how different the scene then and now-in 1834 and in
1911! Today there are several extensive peach orchards on Mission Bottom, one of
them being thirty years old. During this time, it has had but two failures from
late frosts. Some ten years ago the State Agriculu1ral Society offered a
handsome premium for the greatest variety of products of the best quality to be
raised on anyone farm in Oregon, to be exhibited at the State Fair. The result
was one of the most attractive features at the Fair that fall. Many farmers
entered the contest, but the blue ribbon went to Alex Lafollette, one of the
best farmers in Oregon, whose land covers a part of the Old Mission where Jason
Lee located in October, 1834, and where he built his log cabin as the first step
toward converting the noble red man from ways that are dark to a semblance of
Christianity. Lafollette's exhibit included almost every variety of vegetable,
fruit, grain and grass known to any portion of the United States. His premium, a
new Studebaker wagon, was so gorgeously finished and varnished that he was
ashamed to ride in it or to use it in any manner.
When Jason Lee pitched his tent in the little grove of fir
trees beside which he afterward built his cabin, the present site of Portland,
with its population of more than two hundred thousand people, was an unknown
forest, and where is located the beautiful city of Salem, the capital of the
State, with its magnificent State buildings, there was a small prairie called by
the Indians ‘Chemekete,’ which was a favorite camping place for such tribes as
were on friendly terms. At other times and under different conditions it
afforded every facility for a convenient battlefield. Where the State Hospital
for the Insane now shelters a thousand unfortunates, savage tribes had for
thousands of years, no doubt, made their history, which was handed down in
tradition, while the site of the State House, in the midst of the prairie, was
in those days used for the propagation of another kind of incoherency which made
those most interested sit up and take notice – as now. But between these two
modern cities, electric cars now spin across a splendidly improved agricultural
country every hour, passing within two miles of the Old Mission.
Lee and his associates at once entered upon their
labors and soon had a handful of native children attending their school, but in
the long run – though it was a comparatively short run, after all-the effort was
a failure so far as any improvement in the moral or spiritual condition of the
Indians was concerned. Lee himself was to a certain extent discredited through
the disappointment felt by the Missionary Board of New York that greater
progress had not been made in uplifting the heathen. When on his way to “the
States'“ in February, 1844, while stopping for a few days at Honolulu, he
learned that Bishop Hedding had appointed Rev. George Gary, of New York, his
successor. Nevertheless he continued his journey, which was undertaken largely
for the purpose of explaining to the Missionary Board the many difficulties
under which his work had proceeded.
Lee never returned to Oregon, the field of his
greatest efforts, though it was his intention to do so. Going to his birthplace
in Stanstead, Canada, for a much-needed rest, he contracted a severe cold from
which he never recovered, and on March 12,1845, he passed into the Great Beyond
with the hope of receiving the reward of a faithful servant of God.
The life of Jason Lee was a singularly sorrowful one. In
June, 1837, the Mission was blessed with the arrival of twelve new members from
the East, seven of whom were women. To one of these, Miss Anna Maria Pitman, Lee
was married within four weeks, and on the same day and with the same ceremony
Miss Susan Downing, another of the new arrivals, was united to Cyrus Shepherd.
And although the joyous occasion was not celebrated amid the accompanying
strains of Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” nor in a gilded parlor adorned with
smilax and imported ferns, yet in the grove of firs, God's own temple, these
Christian people probably pledged their fidelity to each other with as full a
measure of bliss as ever filled the hearts of the “idle rich” in the centers of
civilization.
In March of the next year, 1838, Lee began the
journey overland to New York for the purpose of presenting the needs of the
Mission to the Board. On the first day of the following September, while at the
town of Westport, Missouri, he was overtaken by a messenger sent from the
Mission to inform him of the death of his wife and infant son on July 26.
Burdened with this great affliction, he went his way, devoting himself during
the next twelve months to organizing a new expedition to the Oregon Country,
composed of those who were closely identified with the Methodist Church. These
people, fifty-one in number, sailed from New York on October 9, 1839, bidding
adieu to former friends and associations and casting their lot with the
much-talked-of region on the Pacific Coast.
There is something intensely fascinating about this great
movement to all Oregonians, but especially to those who, like myself, can
remember most of those grand pioneers who so industriously and patriotically set
about creating a State from the raw materials by which they were so lavishly
surrounded. This addition to the Mission, and incidentally to the forces which
so soon afterward began to shape affairs toward American ownership of the
country, was called the “Great Reenforcement” and to this day if you should
speak of the “Great Reenforcement” to an active Methodist his eye will kindle
with enthusiasm and, if he is not tongue-tied (and I have never yet seen a
Methodist so afflicted), he will begin a deserved eulogy upon the many virtues
of that band of men and women. Numbered among them were Rev. J. L. Parrish and
wife, Rev. Gustavus Hines and wife, Rev. A. F. Waller and wife, George
Abernethy, who became the first Governor of Oregon under the provisional
government, Dr. I. L. Babcock, L. H. Judson and others who won conspicuous
places in the subsequent development of the country.
With these people on the good ship “Lausanne,”
returning to the scene of his labors, was Jason Lee, who, just before starting
had married Miss Lucy Thomson, of Barre, Vermont. The ship arrived in the
Columbia River on May 21, 1840, and within a few days those who were destined to
locate at the Mission reached that point and took up their appointed tasks. At
the Mission on March 20, 1842, Lee's second wife, like his first, died in
childbirth, leaving an infant daughter who grew to womanhood.
Jason Lee's first wife was buried on a beautiful
knoll overlooking the Chemekete prairie — where Salem now stands — and it has
ever since been known as Lee Mission Cemetery. It is just outside the city
limits of Salem, and while its lots are at the service of the general public it
is distinguished as the last resting place of many of the State's most prominent
Methodists and is owned by that religious organization. When
I was a boy in my early teens, attending the
Willamette University, the Lee Mission Cemetery was “way out in the country.”
Many a time, I have gone in company with boys of my age “prowling” through the
scattered woods that intervened between the city and the cemetery. Sometimes we
ventured inside the fence of the “graveyard” where, under the spreading branches
of a giant oak tree which had been there — and almost its present size — when
Columbus landed on the eastern shores of America, we stood in awe, mingled with
a quite well-defined sense of fear, and read this inscription upon a huge slab
of marble in letters even then dingy with age:
Beneath this sod,
The first ever broken in Oregon
for the reception of
White mother and child,
Lie the remains
of
ANNA MARIA PITMAN,
wife of
REV. JASON LEE,
and infant son.
She sailed from New York, July, 1836,
Landed in Oregon, June, 1837,
Was married July 16,
and died
July 26th, 1838,
Aged 36 years.
By the side of Anna Pitman Lee and her little son
lie the remains of Mrs. Lucy Thomson Lee, Jason Lee's second wife.
The history of Oregon will be searched in vain for a
more pathetic story of individual experience than that which clusters around the
career of Jason Lee. Imbued with a fervent religious zeal, he desired to
consecrate his life to the service of Christianity, and his special ambition,
even before the proposition to come to Oregon was presented to him, was to work
among the Indians. Making the long journey across the continent as early as
1834, he found conditions here even more difficult and unpromising than he had
supposed. After working under these dispiriting circumstances for three years he
returned to New York overland in 1838, the sad news of his wife's death
overtaking him when his journey was but little more than half over. He returned
to Oregon in 1840 and two years later lost his second wife. He was virtually
discharged from his superintendency in 1844, through misrepresentation and the
fact that the undertaking, because of impossible conditions, had not met with a
great measure of success. The same year he made his second journey to the Mother
Church in New York in the interest of the Mission, was seized with a severe
cold, and on March 12, 1845, at his home in Canada, yielded up his life.
I have never read of a sadder career than this —
have you? And yet it bore fruit of the rarest character, and the results of
Lee's efforts are felt in all Oregon to this day. Not only those who came here
in the earlier days recognize his great sacrifices made in laying a great
State's foundation, but our newer citizens, as they familiarize themselves with
the pioneer history of their adopted State, will read with growing admiration of
the man who gave his life for the promotion of a great cause.
For sixty-one years, the body of Jason Lee lay in
the cemetery of his native town in Canada. Frequently the proposal to bring it
to Oregon and place it by the side of his wives in Lee Mission Cemetery was made
by appreciative citizens of Oregon, and the General Conferences of the Methodist
Church often seriously considered it, but the pressing demands for money in
matters calling for immediate action caused delay after delay. Finally, however,
in the summer of 1995, the movement inaugurated by the Conference and a few
outside individuals was successful. On a beautiful June afternoon in 1906, when
the sun was approaching the western horizon and all nature was in an
exceptionally happy mood, — just such a day as is known in all its perfection no
place on earth outside the Willamette valley, — the body of Jason Lee was
deposited by the side of his loved and faithful wives and infant son, after a
separation of nearly sixty-five years!
Standing under the shade of the majestic oaks which had all
these years stood as sentinels over the graves of the partners of his successes
and disappointments, chiefly the latter, a thousand people witnessed the solemn
ceremony. Many of the oldest Methodists in the Northwest were there, but,
singularly enough, no one who had ever seen Jason Lee. At the graveside, after
the casket had been lowered, President Coleman, of the Willamette University,
invited several prominent men who were present to make short addresses. I recall
that among these was Rev. John Flinn, then eighty-eight years of age and one of
the oldest ministers in point of service as well as age on the Pacific Coast. He
is of Irish extraction, of an unusually sunny disposition, and as devout a man
as may be found anywhere. His remarks on this occasion were
very impressive. With quivering voice, he referred to
the reverence he felt while in this city of the dead, which held the remains of
so many of the pioneer Methodists — Bishop Haven, William Roberts, Father
Wilbur, J. L. Parrish, Gustavus Hines, Harvey K. Hines and others who had
wrought with such good effect in the old days.”But our ranks are thinning,” said
he, “and within a few days at most, Dr. Driver, you and I will be with them,
singing praises to the Lamb. Bless the dear Lord!” And as he said it he made his
way to where Dr. Driver stood and embraced him fervently, while the tears
streamed down the cheeks of the distinguished Methodist patriarchs who had
carried the banner of the Cross in Oregon for more than fifty years.
And there were other eyes, many hundreds of them, similarly
affected by this exhibition of pardonable emotion aroused by the recollection of
days and experiences long gone by.
At this point, Father Flinn gave way to a reminiscent vein
and, forgetting for the moment where he was and the seriousness of the occasion,
said:
“Brother Driver, do you remember the time of your
conversion down in Umpqua valley? I was there and I will never forget,” etc. He
then related a humorous incident connected with Brother Driver's conversion and
finished with a chuckle, the entire audience joining in the laugh which the
anecdote forced. Driver replied with a sally, recounting the first time he ever
saw Flinn, and the predicament he was in, — the entire incident at the
graveside, although out of harmony with a solemn occasion, presenting a
humorously pathetic feature which was enjoyed and appreciated by those present,
but which would have been sheer irreverence if indulged by younger men. On the
whole, it well illustrated how indistinct, after all, is the dividing line
between life and death, and was a demonstration born of religious enthusiasm
which would have pleased Lee himself if he could have witnessed it — and who is
prepared to say that he did not?
It was very fitting that this burial ceremony should have
been under the management of Dr. John Coleman, the then president of Willamette
University, for it was Jason Lee who made the preliminary move toward the
establishment of that institution when, at a meeting at his house in Chemekete,
now North Salem, on January 17, 1842, a committee was appointed to look into the
feasibility of founding an institution of learning. This committee consisted of
Dr. J. L. Babcock, David Leslie and Gustavus Hines. It took up the matter
promptly and called a meeting to be held on February 1, two weeks later, at the
Mission. It was on motion of Gustavus Hines that the new school was to be called
the “Oregon Institute.” This meeting chose the first Board of Trustees of the
proposed school, consisting of .Jason Lee, David Leslie, Gustavus Hines, J. L.
Parrish, L. H. Judson, all preachers, and Messrs. George Abernethy, Alanson
Beers, Hamilton Campbell and Dr. J. L. Babcock — all characterized by force of
character and intensity of purpose — such men as it is seldom possible to find
in any community, young or old.
Jason Lee, the president of the Board of Trustees,
was empowered ''as agent to labor for the interests of the school in the United
States, whither he was going soon to promote further the civil and religious
welfare of Oregon,” as is recorded in a contemporaneous account of the movement.
The United States was at that time regarded as a foreign country, which, indeed,
it was. The construction of the Institute was well under way when Mr. Lee was
superseded in the missionary field in Oregon by Rev. George Gary, who upon his
arrival here, finding the conditions of the Mission Manual School very
unsatisfactory, soon afterwards sold it to the trustees of the institute for
four thousand dollars. The Indians did not take to the matter with any degree of
interest. Many of the children died, others had been taken by their parents to
their tepees in their forest homes and the great effort of Jason Lee to
“convert” the red men ended in failure, so far as immediate results were
concerned. But he had laid broad and deep the foundations for a great
university, had blazed the way for a substantial civilization, and had
sacrificed his life at the age of forty-one in support of a glorious cause.
The Oregon Institute was opened in September, 1844, with
Mrs. Chloe Willson as its only teacher. She was the wife of Dr. W. H. Willson,
the clerk of the Board of Trustees, and, as Miss Clark, was one of the young
women who had come here for the purpose of teaching the children of the
missionaries. She continued in this service until 1850. Soon after the opening
of the school, Rev. F. S. Hoyt was elected a teacher and continued at the head
of the school until 1854, during which time it had so prospered that several
instructors were employed. In 1853, the Board of Trustees applied to the
Legislature for the passage of an “Act to establish the Willamette University,”
and its charter was enacted during that session.
Thus came into existence an institution of learning
which has had a wider influence in furthering the educational interests of the
Northwest than all others. Many of the most prominent men and women on the
Pacific Coast, in all walks of life, have been students within its walls. For
nearly seventy years it has been striving to advance the material as well as the
spiritual welfare of all this region roundabout, and while, like all
institutions of similar character, it has had its seasons of adversity as well
as prosperity, its immediate directors and supporters have been intensely loyal,
and to-day it is enjoying a measure of success not before known in its long and
useful career.
Next Chapter - Interesting
details from the journey of Anna
Maria Pitman who traveled to Oregon around South America.
If you are interested in finding this book, Fifty
Years in Oregon, it can
often be located at Powell's Books in Portland
which is one of the largest used book stores in the United States or, through the
Alibris service
which catalogs used books from stores across the country. For more information on the Geer Family, visit the Geer Family website. Other resources
and references include:
