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Hon. Alden Chester, youngest son of Alden Chester (born in New London, Conn., May 26, 1803, died in Westford, N. Y., March 4, 1857), was born in Westford, Otsego county, September 4, 1848, and descends from Capt. Samuel Chester, who came from England to Boston and settled in New London in 1633. Judge Chester's mother, Susan G. Draper, descended from James Draper, who came from England to Roxbury, Mass., about 1643.
Judge Chester was educated at the Westford Literary Institute, taught therein and became clerk in a store in his native village. When eighteen he was made telegraph operator on the old Albany aud Susquehauna Railroad. He graduated from Columbia College Law School in 1871, was admitted in May of that year and came to Albany, where he formed a law partnership with his cousin, Andrew S. Draper. From 1876 to 1883 Hon. William S. Paddock was a member of the firm, under the name of Paddock, Draper & Chester; since 1887 Judge Chester has practiced alone. In 1874 and 1876 he was deputy clerk of the Assembly; for several years he was a member and secretary of the Republican General Committee of Albany county; has been a member and president of the Board of Public Instruction, and was appointed assistant United States attorney for the Northern District of New York in 1882; resigned in 1885; was appointed by Governor Morton in 1895 member of the commission to prepare a uniform charter for cities of the second class, and in November of the same year he was elected justice of the Supreme Court for the term of fourteen years.
