Austin M. Lester, a successful whaling ship captain, master of the Meteor and the Congress, built the house at 5 Riverside Place in Gales Ferry, Ledyard, in 1846 to become his home after he returned from his last voyage in 1847. After Capt. Lester’s death in 1862, the house passed to his son, Austin A. Lester, who sold it in 1867 to Erasmus Darwin Rogers, who was also a whaling captain. Capt. Rogers is credited as being the first man to land on Heard Island in the South Indian Ocean. He began the era of seal hunting on the uninhabited island. This lasted until 1880, by which time sealers had wiped out most of the island’s elephant seal population. After Capt. Rogers’s death in 1906, his daughter sold the house in Gales Ferry, which has since passed through various owners.
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