Collection: Lester R. Smith Collection | ArchivesSpace Public Interface

Scope and Contents

Materials within the collection concern the business, legal, and church papers, booklets and newsclippings of Lester R. Smith. Of note is a small selection of material related to union activities in Catskill during the interwar period. Also included are photographs of the sites of car accidents across Greene County. Also of note are the 1858 New York Daily Tribune newsclipping of the recollections of Rev. Dr. David Porter of Catskill and a large number of newspaper clippings concerning 1930's legal cases.

Dates

1858-1966

Biographical / Historical

Lester R. Smith was an attorney and resident of Catskill, New York married to late Greene County Historian Mabel Parker Smith. A graduate of Albany Law School, he maintained an office on the second floor of the Catskill National Bank Building and tried cases in the local circuit of the New York State Supreme Court in the 1930s and '40s. Many of the civil trials he tried involved auto accidents, and he retained extensive collections of photographs of accident scenes. He had a personal and professional interest in local crimes and trials, and as such maintained clippings files on many noteworthy local cases. Other materials in Mr. Smith's papers related to his time as an employee of the Tanners National Bank prior to his time practicing law. As a bank employee he was the representative for several failing companies in the village including the Catskill Mountain Railway and the Kaaterskill Brick and Paving Company.