#Lester piano company history free

Each picture in the album had a story of all its own … Lester not so long ago and snugly ensconced himself in an armchair, turned idly the leaves of an old photograph album, while listening to tales of pioneer days. Lester can tell of those early days and of days earlier still when the law of might not right kept hundreds of unhappy men and women in the galling bonds of slavery in the soft and sunny south. … Many are the stories which in an idle hour Mr. Lester’s kindly face was first seen in Victoria. He was “one of them” in the early days, when the Queen City was nothing but a great camp…. The following are excerpts from the article.Īlmost every pioneer of Victoria knows Mr. The conversation takes place at Peter Lester's home on Vancouver Street. His wife Nancy died at the age of 82 in February 1892 and is buried at the Ross Bay Cemetery.Īn article appears in the Colonist - “ RAMBLING REMINISCENCES - A chat with Mr.

Unfortunately, no records have been found of when or where Peter Lester died. Abner, a shopkeeper, went bankrupt in 1863, and was not insured when his store burnt down in 1870. It is believed this was to help Sydna and her husband Abner Hunt. Tax records also show that between 18, Lester and Sydna Francis owned a property on Johnson Street and paid the taxes. The Lester's daughter Sarah, taught piano, they also had 2 sons, Peter, a building painter and Frederick Douglas, a carpenter there are also records of 2 grandchildren Blanche and Frederick Jr, children of Frederick and Octavia. Lester is listed on the 1875 voter’s list as a resident of Vancouver Street where he lived with his wife Nancy. It was not until Novemthat Blacks were formally added to jury lists. Butts objected to him at first, but Lester was allowed to take his seat with the jury.” Peter Lester, a Black grocer, was the first juror called in the Butts case. While the Lester & Gibbs business was prominent in early Victoria, Lester himself was a private man and left no documents or papers, so it is speculation that he may have felt some satisfaction that he was the 1st Black to sit on a jury in the Vancouver Island colony.Ī brief article in the Colonist on Februreads as: “A negro on the Jury list”: The article state that Mr. In response to these events, as well as a newly introduced measure by the state legislature to ban any black immigration to California, the Lester’s decided to join the exodus of African-Americans to Victoria in Canada. After several weeks of active debate on the matter, Peter removed his daughter from the school. Then in 1858, Lester’s 15-year-old daughter, Sarah Lester, became part of a local uproar when the pro-slavery San Francisco Herald printed an anonymous letter demanding her removal from an otherwise all-white school. In one incident, two white men assaulted him in his store with a cane and stole a pair of shoes he could not press charges against the men because courts did not allow testimony by African-Americans. However, Peter Lester was not pleased with the way blacks were treated in California. Gibbs) “Emporium for Fine Boots and Shoes, imported from Philadelphia, London and Paris.” This business saw wide success in both wholesale and retail, and the pair became wealthy. They became partners in the firm Lester & Gibbs, and opened up a successful shoe store in 1851 bearing the name (according to Mr. Lester was making his living as a bootblack and boot maker in San Francisco when he met Mifflin Wistar Gibbs in the early California gold rush days. In an attempt to do something about this, he invited slaves and domestic workers into his home to educate them about their rights and to teach them anti-slavery songs.

#Lester piano company history free

Peter Lester moved with his wife Nancy and five children to San Francisco from Philadelphia in 1850, where he was appalled to find that slavery was still a fact of life in the free state of California. In February 1860 he was the 1st Black to sit as a juror in B.C.