Dale Call’s day job is Westport Chief of Police.
In his spare time, he does detective work — on Westport’s history.
Following up on yesterday’s post, referencing the Lees’ twine manufacturing company — and Mary Palmieri Gai’s additional comments, remembering Lees’ Richmondville mill and surrounding real estate — Dale writes that the Leeses were “a fairly large family, and pretty prominent Westporters back in the day.”
Edward M. Lees (Courtesy of Dale Call)
They began selling their significant landholdings in the 1920s — but the name survives, thanks to Lees Pond, Lees Dam and Lees Lane, all in the Richmondville area.
Edward Lees was a Westport postmaster, and a lawyer. Dale thinks he had little to do with the mill, which belonged to his father, John.
Dale also knows quite a bit about Fairfield’s 17th Regiment, which was mentioned yesterday, and in which many Westporters fought during the Civil War. A number of soldiers were Dale’s ancestors.
Edward Lees joined the regiment too, ending the war as a 2nd lieutenant in Company K. He was wounded at Gettysburg, and captured at the Battle of Chancellorsville — which, Dale notes, began 150 years ago yesterday.