346 WILLIAM RAYMOND LEE. 



after only little more than twelve hours of sickness, he died of heart 

 disease. 



His most prominent personal characteristic was a genial gayety, 

 which, with his cordial, exuberant hospitality, was simply the over- 

 flowing of his large, warm heart; this endeared him to his hosts of 

 friends, among whom were numbered many of the brilliant poets and 

 scientific men who adorned Cambridge during the time of his service 

 as Rumford Professor, and such others as Ole Bull, Ericsson, and 

 Henry. It also manifested itself in the affectionate care with which 

 he treated the operatives of the Rumford Chemical Works, more as if 

 they were his children than his paid laborers. Nowhere were these 

 beautiful traits in his character more delightfully manifested than in 

 his beloved Sylvester Manor at Shelter Island, where he was in his 

 element, dwelling on the familiar but ever fresh beauties of the 

 scenery, showing his visitors the latest improvements, or delighting 

 them with learned and interesting accounts of the antiquities of the 

 island, or his own more extended archaeological researches. In these 

 researches he showed the singular ingenuity of mind, the dogged per- 

 sistency in clinging to a problem until he had mastered its minutest 

 details, the unconquerable enthusiasm, and the honesty of purpose 

 which were his leading characteristics, and to which his great success 

 in the worlds of science and business was due. In reviewing his life, 

 his successes, great as they were, are not the most striking things. 

 These are rather his extraordinary public spirit and his high sense of 

 honor ; and it is pleasant to realize that he achieved to a remarkable 

 degree the main object in his career, both as a scientific man and as a 

 citizen, — the help and improvement of his fellow creatures. 



1893. Charles L. Jackson. 



WILLIAM RAYMOND LEE. 



Colonel William Raymond Lee, whose death on the 2Gth 

 of December, 1891, attracted considerable attention at the time, 

 belonged to the Marblehead or Revolutionary Lees. His grand- 

 father, whose name he bore, was in the Revolutionary War the 

 colonel of a Marblehead regiment. From him Colonel Lee derived 

 his right to membership in the Cincinnati. Another ancestor, 

 Jeremiah Lee, was prominent in many ways in the Revolutionary 

 struggle. 



William Raymond Lee was born in 1807. He was educated at 

 West Point, where he was a member of the class of 1829. He 



