Charles Gilbert O'Dell

1860 - 1943  (82 years)

• Name	Charles Gilbert O'Dell
  Birth	22 Sep 1860	Kings County, New Brunswick   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Death	4 Aug 1943	Saint John, New Brundswick, Canada   [2]
  Burial	Place unknown
  Person ID	I8	Lester
  Last Modified	17 Mar 2021

  
  

  Father	William Edward Lester, -Lister-Leister,   b. Abt 1790, New Brunswick, Yorkshire, England or New Brunswick, New Jersey d. 16 Sep 1824, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada (Age ~ 34 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth Graves,   b. Abt 1795
  Marriage	21 Oct 1817	Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada   [3]
  Family ID	F9	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Edna Anne Saunders,   b. 15 Mar 1832, Hampton, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 19 Feb 1905, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (Age 72 years)
  Marriage	22 Mar 1855	Trinity Anglican, Kingston, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada   [4]
  Children	1. William Edward Lester,   b. Feb 1857, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 13 Dec 1880, Nauwigewauk, Kings County, New Brundswick, Canada (Age ~ 23 years) + 2. Mary Isadoa Lester,   b. 3 Aug 1858, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. Aft 1904 (Age > 47 years) + 3. Elizabeth Susan Lester,   b. Dec 1862, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 26 May 1914, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (Age ~ 51 years)   4. Peter Richard Lester, Lister,   b. 26 Dec 1860, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 11 Oct 1927, Nauwigewauk, Kings County, New Brundswick, Canada (Age 66 years) + 5. Margaret Catherine Lester,   b. 10 Apr 1864, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 9 Nov 1945, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada (Age 81 years) + 6. Emma Augusta Lester,   b. 8 Dec 1865, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 11 Aug 1947, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada (Age 81 years) + 7. Edna B Lester,   b. Jan 1868, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. Aft 1910 (Age ~ 43 years) + 8. Allan Freeman Woodman Lester,   b. 22 Nov 1869, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 1955 (Age 85 years) + 9. John McGill Otty Lister,   b. 31 Oct 1875, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada d. 1965 (Age 89 years)   10. Humphrey Gilbert Tisdale Lester,   b. 29 Jul 1877, Nauwigewauk, Kings County, New Brundswick, Canada d. 26 Feb 1946, Nauwigewauk, Kings County, New Brundswick, Canada (Age 68 years)
  Family ID	F5	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	19 Mar 2016

  
  

• Notes

  William Boyd Lester was born on Monday, 29 March 1824. The census report of 1901 was the only source for the date of his birth. The census reports of 1871, 1881, 1891and 1901 listed him as born in New Brunswick but many of the sons and daughters death records indicate that their father was born in England. A family story is that William’s father (also a William) was injured butchering an animal for food while on board ship coming to Canada. The father later died and was buried on land. William’s grandson Roy thought it was Halifax but it was probably Saint John since there is a port with lots of ships coming from various places and this is where the family lived in later years. There is a newspaper record of a William Lester, cartman, dying in September of 1824 in St. John, N.B. The family story said that the wife/mother was left with three small children, and there is a further record from the Saint John County Marriage Register of an Elizabeth Lester, widow, marrying a William McCarter in 16 February, 1826 These folks could be William’s parents. It may be that if this is the case much of our William’s early history is lost since he would only have been five months old when his father died. We are therefore left with the questions about who his father was and perhaps how the father came to be in Canada. There is also some question as to the spelling of the name. We know that the Elizabeth Lester mentioned was not literate as she signed the marriage record with an x, so she may not have been certain how the name was spelled. Another researcher feels that it could have been Leister or Lister. In the death record of his son Peter, the informant was his daughter Emma Carson. She lists her father as William B Leister. His son John and family always went by Lister. In an e-mail in April 2003 researcher Jeanine Grant Lister gave information about William’s possible parents. Her source was a letter from Ida Medora Lister (her grandmother) written 11 August 1999 in which she (Ida) stated her father James Albert Lister told her that his grandfather Samuel’s (and possibly William’s) father was an officer with the Royal British Navy. This is yet to be verified but would be in the time period 1805-1815, or about the time that the British Navy was blockading the Atlantic. Many Navy personnel jumped ship because of dreadful conditions. Could it be that William Sr. was one of these? William married Edna Ann Saunders of Kings County N.B. the daughter of George Saunders and Amy Keirstead on Thursday 22 March 1855 in Trinity Anglican Church Kingston, Kings County, New Brunswick by the Reverend Wm E. Scovil. Trinity is the oldest Anglican Church in New Brunswick. William Lester indicated that he was from Saint John and Edna indicated that she was from Hampton so why they decided to marry in Kingston is some what curious, although the first child William Edward was baptized there also. Saunders and Keirsteads were both Loyalist families. The witnesses to the marriage were Harmonius Saunders, a brother of the bride and Sarah Ann Hampton (later to be Harmonius wife). William was a few days short of 31 when he married Edna. They started their married life in Kings County, residing on a farm across the Gondola Point Road from Harmonius Saunders and just down the road from Edna’s father George Saunders. The piece of land now situated on what is now called Meenans Cove Rd. contained about 40 acres and had been given to Edna by her father George Saunders by will when he died in 1857. They sold it in 1887 to Edna’s nephew George T. Saunders. They may have moved by 1871 since the address given to the Lovell Directories that year is Hammond River, Hampton, Kings County a distance of perhaps 3 miles. William and Edna had ten children, five sons and five daughters. The first son, William Edward, died when he was only twenty-three of pneumonia. The family story is that the oldest son was always named William and that seems to be the case in many of the families. Information from the 1871 Census Schedules 2-9 indicates that William Lester owned Lot 2 at Hampton, Kings County consisting of 30 acres of which 10 were improved and 20 were in pasture. He had 1 house, 1 barn, 2 carriages or sleighs, 2 wagons or sleds and 1 boat. He had no animals that year. He had 2 plows, and 1 horse rake. He had harvested 230 bushels oats, 15 bushels peas, 1 1/2 bushels beans, 100 bushels buckwheat, 1 1/2 acres of potatoes, 20 bushels turnips and 10 bushels beets. He had 40 acres of hay and 1 fathom of nets. He had cut 7 cords of firewood. By 1884 William was supplementing his farm and fishing income by employment as a railway section man. From the Kings County Record Newspaper of July 23 1896, Nauwidgewauk Notes we read the following: "On Monday night, the 13th, we had an unwelcome visitor in the shape of a miniature cyclone which caused great damaged to crops and property. Thunder and lightening, rain and hail as well as a strong wind were features, but the leading one was the hail storm, the hail stones being as large as hen's eggs (fact). In some houses as many as sixty window panes were broken, cut down potatoes, corn, peas, oats and even grass was destroyed; trees were stripped of their branches and H. Hill lost a 30x40 barn which was carried from the foundation and scattered over the field. The track of the cyclone was a quarter of a mile in width and in it very little crop remains to pay the farmer for his springs work." There is no family story of this event but was William's home or farm in the path of this storm?

  
  

• Sources

  [S2] Vital Record -NB. birthplace listed on 4 children's death records as England [S9] newspaper. King's County Record Aug 6 1904, p 6, Nauwidgewauk notes obtained Sept 26 1996 [S98] Rootsweb. 21 OCT 1817 in St John, New Brunswick, Canada Susan downtheroad2001@yahoo.com [S10] Church Records New Brunswick.