Early Long Island Wills of Suffolk County, 1691-1703

The Lester Will Book

Up to 1844 the County Clerk’s office was wherever the clerk happened to live. Thomas Helme was clerk in 1691, and for many years after. William Henry Smith, a son of the Judge, held the office from 1730 to 1739. After the Revolution, under the State Government, Hon. Ezra L’Hommedieu was clerk from 1784 to 1810, and again in 1811. He died in office September 27, 1811. The book of which this volume is a copy was among his official books and papers. By some oversight it was not transferred to his successor in office, but remained in the hands of Thomas S. Lester, Sr., who died September 13, 1817. With the rest of his private papers it came into the possession of his only son Thomas S. Lester, Jr., who was a child at the time of his father’s death. Many years later, when he came to manhood, his attention was called to the book by the late Charles B. Moore of New York City, and he saw at once that it was an original Book of Records, belonging to the County Clerk’s office; and on October 13, 1871, he transmitted it to George C. Campbell, who then held the office, and it was thus restored to its proper place after having been lost to the public for a period of sixty years. The absence of any punctuation in this volume may attract attention, but in this they follow the original.

The life of Thomas S. Lester, who thus conferred upon the public a lasting benefit, was a curious episode in local history. Inheriting from his father a farm in Southold, he made these paternal acres his home during life, and was in the opinion of his neighbors a plodding, unambitious man, without aspirations for wealth. Dying intestate, it was found, to the astonishment of all who knew him, that by careful investments of his small income which were invariably successful, he had accumulated a fortune of $300,000, which went to heirs at law. Among these was a pauper, supported at public expense, who awoke one morning to find himself the possessor of thirty-eight thousand dollars. The sudden transition from the porridge pot to the palace was too much for him, and only a very brief interval elapsed (the most of which was spent in sampling ardent spirits in their varied forms) between leaving his home in the County House for one much narrower in the village grave yard.

• Archive.org
  An unabridged copy of the manuscript volume known as “The Lester will book;” being the record of the Prerogative court of the county of Suffolk, New York; with genealogical and historical notes, by William S. Pelletreau.
  • Haith Trust