Craven County NcArchives Biographies.....Chester, Charles Thomas 1826 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 25, 2008, 10:39 pm

Author: Leonard Wilson  (1916)

CHARLES THOMAS CHESTER

WHEN our hardy ancestors of the Old World created for themselves new homes and
fortunes across the western sea, they also established new governmental
environments which gave their descendants a favorable field in which to exercise
their talents.

    The descendants of those early settlers are the men who form the foundation
of our nation; men whose will and energy, whose intelligence and bravery have
wrested from the wilderness the greatest country in all the world. It is,
therefore, but natural that one should dwell with loyal and loving pride upon an
ancestry, which can be traced directly to America's brave pioneers.

    For its American beginnings the Chester family goes back to Massachusetts
where Leonard Chester of Watertown was living in 1633. He was a son of John
Chester of Blaby, County Leicester, England, and a direct descendant of Sir
Robert Chester of Royston, Hertfordshire, one of the gentlemen of the Privy
Chamber of Henry VIII, who obtained from that monarch a grant of the Monastery
of Royston. His Coat of Arms is thus described in heraldic terms:-Arms: Ermine
on a chief sable a griffin passant or, armed argent. Crest: A dragon passant
argent. Motto: Vincit qui Patitur. In this connection it is of interest to
relate an incident which indicates that Leonard Chester believed in cavalier
customs. After his removal with a colony in 1635 to settle Wethersfield,
Connecticut, he made the request that the Chester arms and motto be engraved on
his tombstone. This wish was carried out, and it so incensed his Puritan
neighbors that they endeavored to have it effaced. The arms were too deeply cut
to be obliterated, but they succeeded in removing the motto with the exception
of the word "Patitur."

    Leonard Chester had a son, John, born at Watertown in 1635, who was
subsequently known as John Chester of Wethersfield. He married in 1654 Sarah,
daughter of Governor Thomas Welles, by whom he had four daughters and four sons,
John, Stephen, Thomas and Samuel. The sons married and left numerous progeny, of
which, as early as 1831, ten of the name had graduated from Yale and one from
Harvard.

    In the Revolutionary rolls the name of Colonel John Chester appears among
those who served with distinction at Bunker Hill in defense of the American
cause. He later served in the Legislature as Speaker, and became Judge of the
Probate and of the County Courts.

    Charles Thomas Chester, lineal descendant of Leonard Chester, was born in
New York City, January 6, 1826, a son of Thomas Leonard and Eliza (Sidell)
Chester. He was educated in a private school, at Morristown, New Jersey; Dr.
Skinner's School at New Haven, Connecticut, and in 1845 was graduated with a
degree of A.B. from Yale University. Mr. Chester was one of the first men in New
York City to take up the science of electricity as a profession, which brought
him in contact with Prof. S. P. B. Morse, of whom he became a close friend and
associate. Politically he was a Republican, but not of the partisan type. In
religious affiliations he was a member and senior warden, and clerk of the
vestry in St. Paul's Episcopal Church at Englewood, New Jersey, having been
formerly connected with the Church of the Transfiguration, New York City.

    He married June 17, 1856, at New Bern, North Carolina, Miss Lucretia
Roberts, a daughter of John M. and Mary Roberts, born in New Bern, November 17,
1833. Their children are as follows: Mary Roberts, who was educated at St.
Agnes' School and became the wife of Rev. William Newman Parker of Philadelphia;
William S., who was graduated from Stevens Institute as an electrical engineer.
He held the position as organist in St. George's Church, New York, for a period
of twelve years, and died February 22, 1900; Susan, a graduate of Vassar
College, Poughkeepsie, New York, married A. Hunt Lyman. Mr. Lyman died in 1902
and is survived by his widow, Mrs. Chester Lyman of Asheville, North Carolina.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MAKERS OF AMERICA
BIOGRAPHIES OF LEADING MEN OF THOUGHT AND ACTION

THE MEN WHO CONSTITUTE THE BONE AND SINEW OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND LIFE

VOLUME II

By
LEONARD WILSON,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ASSISTED BY PROMINENT HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WRITERS
Illustrated with many full page engravings
B. F. JOHNSON, INC.
CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A.
1916

Copyright, 1916
by
B. F. Johnson, Inc.

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