Lester H. Clee

Lester Harrison Clee (July 1, 1888 – March 15, 1962) was an American clergyman and politician who served in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature and was the Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey in 1937.

Biography Clee was born in 1888 in Thompsonville, Connecticut, to Frederick and Margaret (Kelley) Clee. At a young age he was forced by his father's illness to go to Worcester, Massachusetts, to work in a steel mill. He started a boys' club among his fellow mill workers and in 1908 began working for the Young Men's Christian Association in Quincy, Massachusetts. Clee married Katherine Steele on August 9, 1911.

Clee later served as chairman of the State Mediation Board under Governor Alfred E. Driscoll, and was also president of the State Civil Service Commission and a member of the State Parole Board. He moved to Chester Borough in 1950 and served as Borough Councilman and later as Mayor of Chester Borough, New Jersey. He moved to Princeton in 1954. His wife died in January 1954, and the following year he married Madeleine Dreier.

Clee successfully petitioned for continuance of Bloomfield College and Seminary (now Bloomfield College) before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, with which it is affiliated. He served as a trustee and acting president of Bloomfield College from 1959 to 1960. A dormitory, Clee Hall, was erected in his honor in 1961.

Clee died in 1962 in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 73.