5. Rev. Jason Lee's Diary

This is the diary of Rev. Jason Lee (1803-1845), one of the first Methodist missionaries to travel on the Oregon Trail and settle in Oregon Country. Like all of the missionaries who made the long and perilous journey, Lee was determined to convert the Native people in the region to Christianity. The Methodist Episcopal Church had reason to believe that its missionary efforts would be successful in the West; non-Native fur trappers and explorers, including Captains William Clark and Meriwether Lewis, had reported that Indians had been curious about the power of “the white man’s book of heaven.”

In 1833, Lee was assigned to minister to Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. Historian Frances Fuller Victor described Lee in The History of Oregon (1886): “tall and powerfully built, slightly stooping, and rather slow and awkward in his movements; of light complexion, thin lips closely shut, prominent nose, and rather massive jaws; eyes of superlative spiritualistic blue; high, retreating forehead, carrying mind within; somewhat long hair pushed back, and giving to the not too stern but positively marked features of a slightly Puritanical aspect; and withal a stomach like that of an ostrich, which could digest anything.”