October 9, 1839 by Richard Griswold, who also instituted him rector at Springfield, April 2, 1840. He received the degree of D.D. from Hobart College in 1850, and from the University of Rochester in 1859. In 1867 the University of Cambridge, England conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.
The following wisps of information were gleaned here and there, some of them from letters written by Mrs. Eugene Lewis of Worcester (1922), Bishop Lee's daughter.
Henry W. Lee came to Springfield when he was only eight weeks old. He always called Springfield him home, and Christ Church his "first love." He attended to the Academy at Westfield, then became a pupil-teacher at New Bedford. Mr. N.F. Bent, a clergyman there, influenced Mr. Lee to study for the ministry, when he failed to receive an appointment at West Point which he had sought. He was married at Taunton in April, 1839 by Bishop Griswold. He had a younger brother named Edward Rutledge Lee. Miss Elizabeth Morton of Springfield is a niece of Bishop Lee. When he was rector of Christ Church he served on the School Committee of the city. At the time of his death, "The Church Journal and Messenger" said of him:
"As a man he was very social in his nature, exceedingly agreeable as a companion, full of wit and humor. In personal appearance, he was commanding, standing like Saul 'from his shoulders upwards above his fellows,' which grand, physical development was a true index of his nobleness and magnanimity of soul. As the pastor of a flock, he was admirable; in this respect he had no superiors and few equals. He was especially popular among the poor, to whom he ministered with the utmost fidelity."
Mr. Lee was twenty-four years old when he preached his first sermon in the old Town Hall, the second story of the brick building, built in 1828, and now standing at the easterly corner of Market and State Streets. Christ Church then numbered twenty members. We have a tender memorial of that first service, for twenty years later the faithful Diah Allin received this letter from Rochester, N.Y.
 |
|
|