Photos and graphics are presented, here, in narrative form with links, to provide more meaning and setting than simply giving them captions.. Some of the photos have been scanned into very high resolution where there is detail to be preserved, such as some of the album pages. These will take longer to appear with you click on them. Once downloaded to your screen, use your browser's controls to enlarge the graphic and move it around with the scroll bars or mouse to view detail of individual portions of the photo(s).

We can easily add photos, edit or add text, so we solicit input from family members. Click here to email the editor with input, questions, photo attachments, whatever. That said, let us get on with the story.

The nominal line, that is those carrying the name "Lesher," has a short record. We know for certain that one Jacob Lesher, born around 1800, married one Hester Stebbins June 28, 1829, in the Smithfield Presbyterian Church. The marriage is recorded in the church journal which you can view by clicking here. That's as far back as we can document for sure.

Likely, this Jacob was from the line of one Sebastian Lesher who, with wife and some of his numerous children (see the genealogy itself) came to the Livingston Land Grant that straddled the Hudson River just below Albany, along with many other families including the original Rockefellers. The came from the Palatines, an area of southern Germany that served many as a refuge when France was turned back to Catholicism. The refugees were known as Huguenots, and Sebastian may have been of that ilk. These families came as "debtors" or indentured, to work on a project of manufacturing ships' stores - masts, tar, lumber, from the area of the Land Grant and outfitting ships at East Camp, NY, which was roughly where Germantown, NY is today, and West Camp, roughly just across the Hudson from East Camp, no successor town remaining.

These immigrants settled primarily in Columbia County and nearby, multiplied mightily, but failed in the ships stores project. Ultimately it was abandoned and, one way or another, the debtors became freemen. A book, Lasher Lineage, by Eileen Lasher Powers, contains the genealogy of Sebastian's line, some into the late 1800s. Lasher was an alternate spelling of Lesher - or the other way around. The book was published by Gateway Press, Inc. in Baltimore, 1982, and is out of print. This writer has a copy.

Our Jacob does not seem to appear in Lasher Lineage although there are many Jacobs there and one could be in disguise. Looking from today backward, we can find no record of our Jacob's birth, death, only that he was in Smithfield, Dutchess County (the next county south of Columbia County along the Hudson) in 1829 marrying Xgrandmother Hester. We have no picture of them, nor any idea of Jacob's trade. We have no idea if they had more than one child. For any one traveling in Dutchess County, we recommend a visit to the lovely, pastoral Smithfield, about ten miles northwest of Amenia, the county Seat.

There, in the Smithfield Burying ground, you will find (in the NE corner) the grave stones of Hester, wife of Jacob Lesher, and of Jacob's second wife, Laura, of whom we know nothing. Neither lived long. We have nothing on the origin of Hester, either, except to note that Stebbins was a not uncommon English name in colonial New England.

We know, through birth and death records, that Jacob and Hester had at least one child, Stephen Rossen Lesher, born shortly after their marriage (we're not duplicating data here that is in the genealogy itself). Between marriage and death, Hester could have had one or two more, and Jacob could have had children with his second wife Laura. We have found no records. New York's vital statistics program did not get under way until 1850, so we are dependent on church records. There was a census in 1830 which only records the name "Jacob Lasher" in Smithfield. The census, in those days, recorded only the family head, did not include members.

Stephen Rossen Lesher, with a middle name that could be a clue to something, left home at an early age, about 1843, and headed down river to New York City. We know little about his adventures, but he ultimately went in the button business with a fellow by the name of Whitman. There are stories of his sleeping under the counter of his shop, for lack of a better home. Ultimately, Lesher Whitman & Co. became a major force as a textile merchant company, and made fortunes for both men. Mr. Whitman never married and lived out his years at the Plaza Hotel, Central Park South. Mr. Lesher married a Emilie Theresa Sniffin, a family about which we have little history and no photos.

One photo is known of Stephen, click here, the gentlemen with a beret and mutton chop beard surrounded by a number of his progeny and other various relatives, taken around the turn of the 20th century. This one can be enlarged, but whoever printed this photo did so on a pebble finish paper that loses much of the fine detail. However, this is also the only photo we have of most of the others identified in the picture.

On Stephen's left is his wife, Emilie Sniffin Lesher, our only photo record of the Sniffin line, although the genealogy of that line goes back to Europe aht the 1500s. At Stephen's right are his son Arthur Lawrence Lesher, focus of this genealogy, and wife Marion Alice Isaacs, next down the line. Arthur, a graduate of Columbia, was considered destined to be a scholar, but when his brother Mortimer died young, Arthur had to take the reigns of Lesher Whitman and Company, did so very well, all the while spouting classics.

To put some of these names in order, the genealogical pyramid starts with Jacob and Hester at the top, next below is Stephen Rossen Lesher married to Emilie Sniffin. Stephen had eight children, which appear in some of the photos - Caroline, Stephen Mortimer, Cornelia, Emily, Arthur, Raymond, Adele and Charles. We are concerned with the line coming down through Arthur, grandfather of this writer. Arthur (Lesher of Rye) had nine children, Alice, William, Arthur Jr, Theresa, Stephen II, Robert Fuller, Constance, Margaret and Emilie. Robert Fuller Lesher was this writer's father, but died too soon to see his first child, Robert Gordon Lesher (Lesher of Colorado). He married Elizabeth Gordon Macdonald January 1932, died of a medical accident at age 33 in July of that year, and your humble scribe was born October 23.

Which brings us to a rather neat photo of a whole bunch of families on a day in July, 1932, at a home in Pelham, NY, where all lived at the time. Before any of these people married, Granville S. Foss was a good friend of the Lesher family in general, and Robert F. Lesher in particular. Here are the two of them running rapids on the Housatonic River in Connecticut, photo by a National Geographic photographer, there for an unrelated assignment. Robert married Elizabeth Gordon Macdonald, begot this writer, died, and four years later, after much courting, Granville married Elizabeth, and the family put down roots near Rye, at Chappaqua, NY. Your writer grew up there, married Stevia Warren Sargent in 1955. Her families of Sargent, Downs, McKean and Denny are included in the genealogy.

Foss, Macdonald

This photo combines most the families and more, Dawes, Foss, Lesher, Hastings, Macdonald and one canine named Bingo. The photo carries a caption, and was taken June 1932 with Elizabeth five months pregnant with me. Wetmore Dawes married Caroline Foss, Granville's sister, all three in the photo. Robert married Elizabeth Macdonald, both in the photo, and between them Elizabeth's mother Elsie Hastings Macdonald. The photographer was Henry Gordon Macdonald, my maternal grandfather.

Robert would not live to see August. A 1915 photo shows Elizabeth with her brothers, Betty, Gordon and John Macdonald

My late uncles appear again in World War II. John Macdonald in the quartermaster corps, and Gordon Macdonald in ordenance, both in the European theater.

Lesher Whitman & CO.

Stephen and Mr. Whitman had built Lesher Whitman & Co. into a thriving textile merchant with some proprietary lines such as Lesher Mohairs. Headquarters was at 991 Broadway in New York. The principals were successful enough to live in the best part of town, Whitman, who never married, in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, the Leshers in several successive addresses just west of Fifth Avenue in the 80s. The original homes are no longer there. The addresses contain newer townhouses.

Lesher Whitman was known for a number of lines, for a while the Lesher Mohairs, when that fabric was in style. They also marketed fabric wallpaper, the Cellini Prints, exquisite wall coverings and hangings as seen in this ad. Your browser may reduce the type, so if it is hard to read, under "view" on your tool bar, zoom in or enlarge a touch. Lesher Whitman purchased textiles from a number of sources, one of the majors being the Goodall Mills in Sanford, Maine. Those mills are long since closed, but the buildings remain. Lesher Whitman failed in the early thirties, reportedly unable to move with the tide of fashion fast enough while contracted to merchandize the entire output of Goodall Mills that had became unsalable.

Square Pond

Earlier, the Goodall family had been instrumental in Stephen Lesher's acquisition of land and an island at Square Pond, Acton, near Sanford, typical shared water rights of a local lumber company and the old mills in Sanford. The property was centered on Blueberry Island, where Stephen developed a large family lodge for use during the summers by the whole of his family of nine children, friends and retainers.

The lodge stands today, in good order, original colors, owned by one Scott Bowron (right, with daughter Jill, Bob and Gloria Lesher visiting in 2007, left), who maintains a blog about his life at the island: http://thelodgeblog.blogspot.com/. Good pictures included. Mr. Bowron has told us much of the island's more recent past. Blueberry Island went through several ownerships over the years since 1932, usually used as children's camp, at least once a boys camp, once a girls camp. Today, The rest of the island has been sold and carefully developed.

Hanging from the ceiling of the main room is a long wooden shell, acquired by Arthur in the 20s for practice by his sons Stephen and Robert, who were rowing at Harvard. Ironically, Scott's daughter Jill rowed and co-captained the Berkshire School rowing team, class of 2004. He reports a fruit-sized hole in the shell, possibly attributed to an over-zealous practice swing with a golf club on a rainy day. Rather, I know there was a ping-pong table about there, and my father's killer shot was known to be fatal to a raccoon at up to fifteen feet.

However, some one stayed behind. Mr. Bowron, "It may interest you to know that the local lore is that "Mr. Lesher's ghost" inhabits the house. I've not met him myself, but my sister swears that she saw him in the mirror above the fireplace and my brother-in-law had several occasions of footsteps coming up the stairway with nobody there. The tale is handed down primarily by the children of homeowners on the island, from older to younger, (with occasional help from a conniving parent) and has been the source of many a scary moment for some of the island youngsters. I know of one young man, an adult now, who was walking through the back yard alone one dark night who swears that he saw, through the kitchen window, a "hologram-like" image of a gentleman with long sideburns standing at the kitchen sink. He ran all the way home and his mother said his eyes were the size of pie plates when he arrived!"

Bodwell

The same Stephen, son of Arthur, met and married a local Sanford girl, Marion Bodwell. The Bodwells also had a camp on the west short of Square Pond (seen here about 1900), and again as it was in 2000, used for recreation and hunting. A period photo taken on the camp's kitchen steps shows many Bodwells, possibly some friends, the men outfitted for hunting. Uncle Ned and Aunt Bea Bodwell are together center middle row. Far right is John Lesher, but where is Marion, behind the camera? From that family, , another photo seems to have Ned Bodwell, Marion's brother, and John Lesher being busted for poaching white tail deer in Maine.

After Stephen died in his 30s, Marian returned to Sanford, but spent the rest of her life as perhaps the Lesher family's most beloved hostess, making the Bodwell camp available every summer to visiting family members. It was a right of passage for the young Leshers to learn from Aunt Marion how to open and devour a lobster in a genteel manner, not using nutcrackers or other ugly and destructive tools. Marian's daughter Helene Leighton inherited the Bodwell camp and keeps it privately for her immediate family.

Leshers in Rye

In the early 1900s, Arthur and family, living in New York City, began to use a many-gabled home, moved there in pieces from Nantucket, on a large parcel of land in an area of Rye, N.Y. then known as Cottage Park ("cottage" as in " . . our Newport cottage). The land is now an I-95 interchange.

Called The Cedars, the original house was used on weekends, placing the family in the (then) countryside and close to Long Island Sound, boating and swimming. The sitting room shown. After a while, it became the family's primary residence, with Arthur becoming a commuter on the New Haven Railroad into New York, and the New York townhouse staffed for those over-nighting in the City. Other homes were built on the Rye property for the three oldest daughters of Arthur - Hilltop for Alice and husband Oliver Everett, Cedar House that changed occupants several times, a third for Theresa Lesher and her husband Fahys Cook. Only Hilltop remains today (2006), beautiful, lovely landscaping, stately, empty and for sale. Across its driveway and to the east is a sound fence only slightly reducing the noise of the interstate, I-95, that took the remaining property. The fence doesn't help much, and the constant heavy traffic noise creates a major downgrade to the value of the property.

In 1919, the main house, The Cedars, was almost totally rebuilt into a larger, Tudor residence. Behind it, a stables was transformed into a combination stables/auto garage/well equipped gymnasium. this had been a two-story carriage house on the side of a hill, so one could enter on either level. When converted, the gym was added on top, the center became a car garage, and the remaining horses were on the lower level.

Photos of the first six children of Arthur and Marion Lesher, Casual, and dressed to the nines. A later photo of the oldest boy, William, shows him in his World War I Ambulance Corps uniform.

Three pages from an unknown old photo album, dated about 1920, all very high resolution scans for detail: The First offers several interesting pictures. The two upper photos are taken on the back deck or porch of the newly rebuilt The Cedars, hand labeled with some of Aurthur's daughters, sons Arthur Jr. and Bob (Robert Fuller Lesher) with their mother hidden under a massive chapeau. The second is the same group.

Below is an unidentified shot by a bridge, and on its right, a grouping on the steps of the Lesher camp on Blueberry Island, Maine. The group includes some of the Lesher children including Stephen upper-center, and the three youngest girls seated, Emilie, Constance, Margaret. Below, shot on the Blueberry Island dock, the group is captioned, but who is the little girl by herself. Emilie? The small boy, Oliver, is out of sequence, being a generation younger. This Oliver is the son of the oldest Lesher daughter, Alice. These photos can be greatly enlarged for detail.

The Second are scenes, again, at the rear of the brand new The Cedars, 1920. Some are identified. Elsie was oldest son William's first wife, shown with their one child, Monty. The third shows some church goers at Shapleigh, near Blueberry Island, where the family attended Sundays. Below, a family grouping on one of the docks. Below that, it appears the players are about to go swimming, wearing any handy coat for the photographer. Plus, romance has arrived, as Martha, with Bob, and Frances, with Stephen, are not Leshers.

Here are Bob and J. Fahys Cook, husband of Theresa Lesher, on the way to the first tee in 1919. An earlier photo shows the first six Lesher children, and, finally, we find our one picture of all nine Lesher Children standing on a dock in Kennebunkport, Maine, on the coast not far from Sanford. This photo can be enlarged on your screen for detail. They stand in sequence by sex: William, Arthur, Stephen and this writer's father, Robert; then Alice, Theresa, Constance, Margaret and Emilie. Another, apparently taken the same day, also includes the parents, Arthur and Marion Lesher.

In about 1911, a major family gathering, perhaps Christmas, was photographed at the upper entrance, the one to the gym. This gives us lots of information regarding the composition of family and friends, and many only-pictures of elderly member of the family. Missing is great grandmother Marion Esther Fuller, mother of grandmother Marion (Mrs. Arthur) Lesher. The Fullers came from Brooklyn, Connecticut. We have included the nominal line of their genealogy going back, again, to the Mayflower.

Arthur Lesher and family were members of the North Baptist Church of Port Chester, NY, neighboring town to the east, where Arthur was for years the Superintendent of Sunday School See Photo So to had his parents, Stephen and Emily, been active in the same church, mid 19th century, where they donated two Tiffany Windows to the church.

And finally, very finally, we have the Lesher Tomb, in Woodlawn Cemetery. It was bought and built in 1892, and there is still room at the inn for qualified decedents of Arthur and Marion Lesher, rent free.

Older photos of other lines of the family - the Fullers, the Isaacs show up in the one large holiday grouping. Both families came from Brooklyn, Connecticut, with a photo of the Issac home in Brooklyn on hand. Those families are traced, in this genealogy, back to original passengers on the Mayflower. This Lesher family has ten Mayflower ancestors in four family groups - Alden, Mullins, Fuller, Warren. For interest and color, this site is linked to some excellent Mayflower history and writings.

As for The Cedars, it was leased, about 1934, to a Hazel P. Lindeman who, with a partner, changed the name to Galen House (Galen=physician of Greek legend) and operated it as a nursing home. Marion Isaacs Lesher, Arthur's late widow and this writer's grandmother, returned there April 1, 1940 as a patient/resident after a series of strokes. She remained there until her death on January 7, 1946, both landlord and subtenant. Mrs. Lindeman purchased the house and immediate grounds in 1948 from the estate of Mrs. Lesher. The Cedars, (Galen House) and most of the land and buildings were condemned in 1956 for an interchange of I-95.

The Cedars, stables/gym, the Cook House and Cedar House were all scheduled for razing in 1957 by the State to make way for the freeway. Razing is expensive, burning is cheap, so it was no surprise when The Cedars (Galen House, now) and the gym mysteriously burned in the dark of night. Here is a video of The Cedars burning in 1957, taken by a local TV station. The file is mvd, and you will need Microsoft Media Player. It takes a few moments to download. There is no sound. When finished, hit the back arrow of your browser to return to this page.

No mention is made of the famous gym, but exploring the grown-over land adjacent to the interstate fence, in the 80s, we discovered burned timbers in the area of the gym and stables, and would conclude that it met a similar fate.

It is very easy to update this page, add photos and edit. If you can add anything, correct anything, will loan a photo to be scanned in, contact the Webmaster. Your browser can easily copy any of these existing photos - feel free to do so for your own use. Please enjoy.