[1][5][6][7] In Gibbs's autobiography, "Shadow and Light" (1902), he mentions that, while living in San Francisco, he and Lester were successful in business but dealt with community ostracization and physical assaults.

[1][6] Two white men assaulted him in his store and stole a pair of shoes, Lester was not able to press charges.

[6] In the late 1850s, Lester, along with his partner Gibbs and George W. Dennis, worked to secure the services of a White legal team to fight for the freedom of Archy Lee in a widely publicized fugitive slave case in California.

[4] In 1858, Lester's teenaged daughter Sarah was attending an otherwise all-white school; a local newspaper, the San Francisco Herald printed an anonymous letter demanding her removal.

[1] The Lesters participated in the 1858 mass exodus of African Americans to the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada during the Fraser River Gold Rush.