BIO - Charles J. Lee

Charles J. Lee was born is Huntingtonshire, England, 2/16/1821. He married Anne Beard ( born 11/16/1819) on March 29, 1342. They had two children, a daughter Anne Sophia ( 6/6/ 1643) and a son, Charles,( 3/15/1845). His wife may have died of childbirth complications as she died 3/21/ 1845, only six days after the birth of the son, Charles. In that same year, (9/5/1845) He married sarah Dorkes who was born in Bedfordshire, England ( 12/11/ 1818 ). They had five children. Sarah ( 5/3/1847 ), Elizabeth ( 5/4/1849, and Francis William ( 6/3/1851 ). He evidently emigrated to the United States sometime in the 1840's as our grandmother was born in Brooklyn Green, Wisconsin ( 1849). Sarah Ann (1856-1891, Frank Jerry 1858-? As he tells in his Recollections of the 1850's" he hoped to return to California. In the early 1890's their little Granddaughter Carrie Phelps, ( who married Clarence Sawyer ) became ill and he felt he should bring her to a warmer climate. Carrie Sawyer has told us that she was never ill but her parents had died of teberculosis and that her grandfather, Charles J. Lee) wishing to return to California, feared she might contract the disease and used thatas an excuse to move his family to Forest City. Here he made friends with Thomas Pye who sold him some land on the south side of Cate Mesa in Carpinteria, California where he moved his family in the 1890's. A short time later his wife became ill so he had their daughter, Elizabeth Lee Treloar, come from Forest City to take care of her. She liked the Carpinteria Valley so well that she persuaded her husband Samuel Treloar, to bring their family and join her. Charles J. Lee was 93 years old when he died in 1914 and is buried in the family plot in the Carpinteria Cemetery with his wife, Sarah, his son, Charles ( died 1925 ) and his daughter Elizabeth, ( died 1936 ). The date in the birth and death of his first wife is all recorded on the fly leaf of an old family Bible that ted and Mildred Treloar have, which they inherited from Lucie Lee Trelor. The entries are very exact, even giving the time of birth of each child. Also a notation that his first wife died on Good Friday. The Bible is over 200 years old and it is published in the 1700's and evidently the property of some one on the maternal side of the family as the original owner was not a Lee. The Coat of Arms he described heraldically Argent -- a chevron between 3 leopard faces sable Crest--on a coronet or a leopard's face sable. The story that Charles J. Lee wrote came from the possessions of Frank Phelps, Busseyville, Wis., dated Aug. 24, 1886. He probably was Charles's son-in-law