Marriage / St. John
Hartley married Sara Jane Armstrong in Saint John on December 7, 1848 [03], and from 1852 to 1872, they had a total of eight children. Their first child, Lillias Lorine, was born in 1852 in Prince Albert, Ontario, where the family was said to have lived for about 3 years, and their second child, Annie Augusta was born in Augusta, Maine [04] (or New Brunswick) about two years later. Beginning in 1856 with their third child William, the remaining six children were all born in New Brunswick.

Hartley followed his father in the carpentry field. In 1871, he is listed as a joiner in a St. John directory [05] and is found working in a carriage shop in Saint John in 1878. In January of that year, a local newspaper reports that he was seriously injured on the job and his forearm was “terribly lacerated” when it contacted a circular saw [06], which undoubtedly caused him a great loss of employment.

Hartley’s family was listed on the 1881 Canadian census for New Brunswick at which time he worked as a carpenter. The household consisted of himself, Sara Jane and their four youngest children, including daughters Minerva, then 17 years old and working as a milliner, and Jessie who was 15 years old and employed as a dressmaker [07].

Fire was an ever present danger during these times. A fire occurred in Indiantown in December of 1864 destroying 99 houses and leaving 600 people homeless, including Hartley Lee and his family [08]. Another fire, the St. John Great Fire leveled two-fifths of St John in June of 1877, destroying 1600 buildings within a 12 hour period and leaving 16,000 people homeless [09]. In a later interview, Hartley’s wife Sara Jane recounts that his situation was “broken up by the fire” [04]. Also around this time, the St. John River Valley area found itself in the grip of an economic depression which resulted in a fifth of its population out-migrating during the 80’s [10].

Spokane Falls
These misfortunes of the New Brunswick area occurred around the time that railroad companies were distributing leaflets and posters advertising available land parcels in the Midwestern and Northwestern parts of the United States. Extensive land holdings were granted to The Northern Pacific Railroad along their routes in exchange for financing and building the railroads, and the railroad companies were attracting new settlers from North America and the British Isles with very affordable farmland.  Washington Territory had finally been linked to other parts of the country by the NP railroad which ran emigrant trains to the area and sold good land at a few dollars an acre.

The rich gold, lead and silver deposits discovered in the nearby Coeur d’Alene region also provided a steady source of immigration and commerce to the eastern part of the territory around that time. It could be said that the Spokane Falls area was fairly booming, with the population growing from under 1000 in 1880 to over 20,000 by 1890 and 100,000 by 1910 [11].

Prior to 1883, Hartley’s son William had made two trips to the western part of the United States seeking new opportunity [12], and he was most likely influential in persuading his father’s family to relocate. When all was decided, the family group making the move probably consisted of 9 adults and 6 children. This would have included Hartley and his wife Sara Jane, their four unmarried children Ida, Jessie, William and young Hartley, Annie (Lee) Nason with her husband and 3 children, and Minnie (Lee) Harris with her husband and 2 children [13]. Daughter Bertha (Lee) Armstrong, married with one child, chose to remain in St. John with her family, and daughter Lillias (Lee) Allan also stayed but she and her children eventually joined the group in Spokane Falls a few years later after being widowed.

Judging by the ages and birth locations for the family children at that time, the trip was made around 1883, and they traveled by train. The first Northern Pacific Railroad train had reached the Spokane Falls area in 1881 and a route to Minnesota was completed by 1883. When Rebecca Stirling and her daughter Elvira made the trip to Spokane Falls from Wisconsin in 1883, about half of the miles in distance traveled by Hartley’s group, it took them only about five days of travel [14].  The alternate route used by his son William earlier involved traveling to San Francisco by train, then up to Portland and the Puget Sound by steamer, and finally overland to Spokane Falls [15].

On their arrival, Hartley Lee purchased 160 acres of farmland on the west side of Spokane Falls [12], and worked at building their first home. A few years after arriving, the 1885 census finds most of the group intact and living under the same roof except for Minnie Harris and her family, and Jessie who had just married. The 1885 Lee household listing also included Fred Hoyt, soon to be wed to Ida May Lee [13]. In 1887, Hartley and wife Sara Jane were sharing their household with son Hartley, and the families of Minnie Harris and Annie Nason, including husbands and a total of 7 children [16].

On December 30, 1892, about ten years after his arrival in Spokane, Hartley William Lee passed on at the age of about 73 and was buried in the family plot at Greenwood Cemetery [17]. He was survived by his wife Sara Jane, their 8 children, and many grandchildren. Hartley Lee is a Certified Washington State Pioneer.



[01] Hartley Lee tombstone, Greenwood Cemetery, Spokane. Washington
[02] Family Search extracted records, Christened 02 Jun 1822 Grindon By Stockton on Tees, Durham, England
[03] Marriage Certificate, December 7, 1848, Baptist Church, Carleton, St. John, N.B.
[04] Sara Jane (Armstrong) Lee Interview by daughter Jessie Peasley, March 26, 1907
[05] Lovell New Brunswick Directory for 1871, The Genealogical Research Library, Toronto, 1984, pgs 84, 140, 192
[06] The Daily Telegraph and Courier, St. John, N.B., January 24, 1878, “Serious Accident”
[07] 1881 Canadian Census, Prince Ward, Saint John, New Brunswick, Family History Library Film 1375814
[08]  Daily Telegraph and Courier, 10 Dec 1864
[09] St. John Telegraph Journal, June 20, 2002, Remembering Black Wednesday
[10] Generations (Journal of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society), Vol. 21, No. 3 (Fall 1999), pp.39-41, The Exodus from New Brunswick: Tracing the Out-Migration of a Family, 1860-1920 by Robert C. Fisher
[11] www.spokanecity.org
[12] My Conversation With Great Uncle Alvin Lee,  1985, by Karen Lee Fogg
[13] 1885 US Census, Washington Territory, 1885
[14] Letter from Elvira Stirling to sister Elizabeth King, 17 Feb 1884 were five days and five nights on the way.
[15] The Spokan Times, Spokan Falls, Thursday, May 8, 1879,  article -  How To Reach This Country
[16] 1887 US Census, Spokane Falls, Washington Territory, June 1887
[17] Funeral Home Records for Smith’s of Spokane, Vol. 1, 1890-1902, page 19
[18] Sara Jane Armstrong Lee Death certificate
Sara Jane Armstrong
Hartley William Lee and
HARTLEY WILLIAM LEE
Hartley William Lee was born to parents William Lee and Rebecca Hartley in England about 1819 [01]. Some family records indicate that Hartley’s parents were from Manchester England, and also that he may have been christened in Durham England in 1822 [02]. His parents and their four children immigrated to North America, possibly around mid 1840, and they may have originally settled in the Pennsylvania area where they then dispersed, although no records are presently known of yet that account for their movements during any of these periods. Before his marriage, Hartley had settled in the city of Saint John, New Brunswick.
  Hartley William Lee
  b.1818
  d.22 Jul 1951
Ann Lee
b.
William Hartley Lee
b.
Rebecca Hartley
b.abt. 1800
Sara Jane Armstrong
William Lee
b.abt. 1796
d.after 1860
Nancy Lee
b.
Lillias Lorine Lee
Annie Augusta Lee
William Hartley Lee
Bertha Emma Lee
Ida May Lee
Minerva Adha Lee
Jessie Berlina Lee
Hartley William Lee
SARA JANE ARMSTRONG
Sara Jane Armstrong was born on November 29, 1829 [18] to parents Elizabeth Nickerson and Burling Armstrong in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada where her father Burling was a half owner of a ship running between St. John and Boston. The surnames of her ancestors also include Vincent, Burling, Lawrence, Straight, Lester and many others who were among the earliest settlers in the New York and New England regions. They included mid-17th century Puritan settlers, and immigrants of the 18th century, many of whom were British Loyalists who, around the time of America’s war for independence, left all behind and fled to the British colony of Canada, Sara’s birthplace.