Santa
Clara County
Biographies
GEORGE W. LEE
A veteran of the Civil war and a
worthy and esteemed citizen of San Jose, George W. Lee was
born near Clarksville, Ark., April 29, 1845, a son of Mark and Nancy Hickey
Lee. The father was a native of Virginia and the mother of Tennessee. When a
young man Mark Lee settled in Arkansas, where he engaged in farming and became
the owner of a plantation and a distillery. When the news of the gold
discoveries in California reached their community he was fired with the
ambition to share in the successes which were startling the world. Disposing of
his farm he outfitted with ox teams and necessary provisions, etc., and with
his wife and ten children started on the long journey for the west. They took
the southern route, coming through Arizona and Mexico, and arriving safely in
San Diego, Cal., where Mr. Lee sold his teams and completed the journey to San
Francisco by water. He was there taken seriously ill with brain fever, probably
the result of the nervous strain under which he labored throughout the long and
dangerous journey, and passed away in 1850. The widow then located in San Jose,
where she made heroic efforts to care for her children. She subsequently
married a W. Naylor, an early settler of California, now deceased. She died in
1894, at the age of seventy-eight years.
George W. Lee attended the common school, but
being obliged through the death of his father to seek work at an early age, he
was forced to abandon his studies. He found employment on a ranch where he
became an expert in handling stock and in the saddle. When the Civil war broke
out, though only a lad in years, he enlisted in the fall of 1862 as a member of
Company M, California Battalion, which was taken to Boston and became a part of
the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. He was one of those unfortunate soldiers who
were taken prisoners and dragged out a miserable existence in the prison at
Andersonville until the close of the war, and one of the very few who lived to
tell of the great suffering they endured. While in prison he met and was
associated with men very highly educated, and he decided, should his life be
spared, to lose no opportunity in securing an education. On his release and
return to California he began at once upon this work and throughout the years
has never neglected an opportunity for self-culture, by his own efforts
becoming a man of wide information and knowledge.
On again locating in California Mr.
Lee decided to profit by his ability to handle stock, so in 1876 he went to
Oregon and engaged in stock-raising, remaining so employed for five years, when
he once more settled in the south. Coming to San Jose he became associated
officially with the mills of this city and remained in this connection until
1888, when he received the appointment as janitor of the Grant school. An
evidence of the work which Mr. Lee has performed is visible in the building and
grounds that are nowhere excelled in neatness in the city. He has carefully
tended the young trees until they passed the critical age and are now throwing
their grateful shade over the grounds of the school. Mr. Lee is not only a sympathetic
lover of learning but is also creative, being both an able speaker and writer,
and is now at work upon a story of fiction, the facts for which were taken from
the early life of one of his friends in the state. When complete this will be a
volume of about three hundred pages, and, composed with the eloquence which
distinguishes the writings of Mr. Lee, cannot fail to find its way into public
favor.
The marriage of Mr. Lee united him
with Louise Le Tellier, a native of Wisconsin and the
daughter of James Le Tellier, who is now a resident
of Los Angeles, Cal. Two children were born of this union, namely: Mark, who is
a locomotive machinist of San Francisco, Cal., and Elsie, a teacher of Monterey
county, Cal. Mr. Lee is a member of John A. Dix Post,
G. A. R., of this city, and Battlefield Veterans, serving two years as colonel
of the regiment.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 1031. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.