Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.

Lester Sawyer Gurney Jr. (G04) Notes

Research notes for g04-lester-sawyer-gurney-jr-fact-sheet.md. See .claude/rules/research-files.md for the paired-file rule.

Working Notes

Family handwritten notes - name, date variants, Ethel June Hayes, and engineering leads

Dana Gurney’s notes write G4 as “Lester S. Gurney” and add the phrase “dropped the S,” a useful name-variant clue for later record searches. The same note gives his birth as 13 February 1890 and death as 5 August 1958. Existing project data gives his birth as 13 May 1888, so the Dana birth date should be preserved as a family-note variant pending review of the original birth source and later self-reported documents.[1]

The holy-matrimony certificate confirms the marriage to Ethel June Hayes as 23 April 1921 at Springfield, Massachusetts — Lester Gurney of Worcester and Ethel June Hayes of Springfield, witnesses Albert C. and Irving C. Hayes — settling the date in favor of Dana’s note over the 26 April 1921 FamilySearch index value, which is best treated as a derived or index date.[2]

Dana’s loose note that the Gurney man was a civil engineer for “N.E. Elect. Syst[em]” and a construction manager is now documented. Two 1953 trade clippings (New England Construction Magazine and the Boston “Contact” column) record Lester Gurney’s thirty-five-year career with the New England Power System: a 1906 start as rodman and instrumentman on electric-railway work, chief-of-party on the Cape Cod Canal within three years, assistant engineer for the city of Springfield in 1917, joining the System in July 1918, then assistant resident engineer on the Searsburg development and Hoosac Tunnel relocation, resident engineer for the Sherman development, field surveyor for the Zoar development, assistant to the chief engineer (from August 1927) on the Bellows Falls and Comerford plants, executive assistant in April 1945, and Construction Manager of the New England Power Service Company from January 1947 until retirement on 1 June 1953, when he opened a consulting office at 271 Dartmouth Street, Boston. The generating plants at Salem, Massachusetts, and White River Junction, Vermont, are named among his works; he was a life member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. This documents the third-generation power-engineering line: G4 at New England Power, G3 at New England Power before the war, and G2 at Indiana and Michigan Electric.[2]

Nettie Levada Smith divorce

A Worcester Daily Telegram clipping of 12 October 1920 (“Wife Seeks Career, Husband Gets Divorce”) reports that Lester Gurney of Worcester, a civil engineer employed by the New England Power Co., received a decree nisi of divorce from Nettie L. Gurney on the ground of desertion. He testified that she left in March 1917 after disagreements over her wish to study dramatic art and seek a career as an elocutionist. A compact life-context note, not a centerpiece of the public narrative.[2]

The Page 4 note that the family moved to Wellesley when “Dad Gurney” was about six, maybe 1929, aligns well with G3’s 1923 birth and the existing Wellesley / Wellesley Hills trail for G4’s household.[1]

The Cape Cod Canal — the nationally significant project G4 began on

G4’s first decade of engineering work was tied to one of the era’s marquee civil-engineering projects. The Cape Cod Canal was built between 1909 and 1914 (officially completed 1916) by the financier August Belmont II’s Boston, Cape Cod & New York Canal Company, to designs by the civil engineer William Barclay Parsons — the same Belmont–Parsons partnership that had just built New York City’s first subway. It was a privately operated, sea-level toll waterway, and Belmont pushed to open it before the Panama Canal, which it beat by seventeen days. Construction fought unexpected glacial boulders, requiring steam shovels, dipper dredges, divers, and blasting.[3] G4 entered construction in 1906 and within three years was chief-of-party on the Cape Cod Canal; by 1911 he was with the Cape Cod Construction Company bound for Bourne. He was thus a young field engineer on the canal during its active construction years — concrete, datable participation in a project of national note, not a generic “engineer” label.[2]

The New England Power System and the Deerfield/Connecticut developments G4 built

The “New England Power System” G4 served for thirty-five years was the hydroelectric enterprise organized about 1910 to acquire water rights on the Deerfield River and build a chain of dams; by 1926 it was consolidated, with the Northeastern Power Corporation, Stone & Webster, and International Paper, into the New England Power Association (NEPA), which by the 1930s controlled 26 hydroelectric stations, 17 steam plants, and over 2,000 miles of transmission line. The line of descent runs forward to today’s National Grid.[4] The specific developments named in G4’s 1953 retirement clippings line up, in date order, with this build-out and place him on several headline projects:

  • Searsburg (online 1922) — G4 assistant resident engineer. Water reaches the powerhouse through an 18,412-ft, 8-ft-diameter wood-stave penstock.[5]
  • Hoosac Tunnel railroad relocation — G4 assistant resident engineer. The New England Power Company had bought the Hoosac Tunnel & Wilmington Railroad (the narrow-gauge shortline known fondly as the “Hoot, Toot & Whistle”) to haul dam materials; building the Searsburg/Harriman dams meant relocating its right-of-way to the west side of the Deerfield. The 1924 Harriman impoundment drowned the valley village of Mountain Mills.[6]
  • Harriman (online 1924) — described as the largest hydroelectric facility east of Niagara Falls at the time; fed by a 12,812-ft, 14-ft-diameter bedrock tunnel, its reservoir is still the largest man-made lake in Vermont.[5]
  • Sherman (online 1927) — G4 resident engineer; the station sits between Monroe and Rowe.[5]
  • Zoar development — G4 field surveyor (Deerfield, near the Hoosac/Zoar gap).[2]
  • Bellows Falls (online 1928) — G4 assistant to the chief engineer (from August 1927); new dam and improved canal, matching Harriman’s generating capacity, on the Connecticut River.[5]
  • Comerford / Fifteen Mile Falls (online 1930) — G4 assistant to the chief engineer. The largest hydroelectric development in New England when completed; President Herbert Hoover started its first generator remotely by pressing a button — six years before the more famous Hoover Dam.[5][7]

This gives the third-generation power-engineering line concrete projects to hang on: G4 helped build New England’s largest hydro plants of the 1920s, G3 was briefly at the same New England Power Company before the war, and G2 carried it to Indiana and Michigan Electric.

Research Appendix

  • Included details specifically restored from the thread: father-son May Blossom performance; step-parents Branch and Helen O’Brien; Patchogue explanation and setting; Cape Cod Canal link; Cape Cod Construction Company; Buzzards Bay office in the Linnell Building opposite the railroad station; Patchogue High School / village-social prominence; back-gate wedding escape; Atlantic City honeymoon; and the later Massachusetts addresses including 133 Abbott Road.
  • I did not state Long Island Rail Road or power-engineer employment as settled fact because I still do not have a direct source tying Lester Jr. specifically to those roles.
  • Jean Gurney Rigler, The Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (rev. and expanded ed., 1994), is now logged as a key compiled genealogy for the G4-G13 direct line under source ID rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. Full page-level audit still pending.

  1. Gurney family handwritten oral-history and research notes, revised findings memorandum v3 prepared 4 May 2026 from eight photographed notebook pages, Appendix A, Pages 3-4 and Page 6 transcription in Dana Gurney’s hand. Source ID: gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Gurney family papers from Lester Sawyer Gurney III (G3), passed to Lester Hayes Gurney (G2), in possession of Allen Gurney (G1); especially the 23 April 1921 Lester Gurney / Ethel June Hayes marriage certificate, the 12 October 1920 Worcester Daily Telegram divorce clipping, and the 1953 New England Power Service Company retirement clippings. Source ID: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. “History of the Cape Cod Canal and bridges,” Commonwealth of Massachusetts (mass.gov); “Cape Cod Canal,” Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod_Canal). Belmont/Parsons partnership, 1909–1914 construction, privately operated toll waterway opened seventeen days before the Panama Canal. Source ID: cape-cod-canal-history. ↩︎

  4. “Our History,” Great River Hydro (greatriverhydro.com/our-history); “History of National Grid USA,” FundingUniverse (fundinguniverse.com). New England Power Company formed c. 1910 to develop the Deerfield; 1926 New England Power Association consolidation (with Northeastern Power, Stone & Webster, International Paper); successor line to National Grid. Source ID: great-river-hydro-deerfield-history. ↩︎

  5. “Our History,” Great River Hydro (greatriverhydro.com/our-history), dated build-out of the Deerfield and Connecticut River developments: Somerset reservoir (1911), Deerfield Nos. 2–5 (1911–1915), Searsburg (1922), Harriman (1924, “largest hydroelectric facility east of Niagara Falls at the time”), Sherman (1927), Bellows Falls (1928), Comerford/Fifteen Mile Falls (1930). Source ID: great-river-hydro-deerfield-history. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. “Hoosac Tunnel and Wilmington Railroad,” Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosac_Tunnel_and_Wilmington_Railroad). New England Power Company purchased the HT&W (the “Hoot, Toot & Whistle”) to haul dam materials; Harriman/Searsburg construction required relocating the right-of-way to the west side of the Deerfield; the 1924 Harriman impoundment drowned the village of Mountain Mills. Source ID: hoosac-tunnel-wilmington-railroad. ↩︎

  7. “Frank D. Comerford Dam,” Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_D._Comerford_Dam); “Comerford Dam: The Engine of New England’s Power Grid,” North Star Monthly (northstarmonthly.com). Largest hydroelectric development in New England when completed (1930–31); first generator started remotely by President Hoover. Source ID: comerford-dam-history. ↩︎