Seth Lesser was a haberdasher, originally from New York, who left for California in 1850 attracted by the prospect of acquiring fabulous riches spurred by news of the California Gold Rush. Almost immediately after reading the news on the August 19, 1848 edition of the New York Herald, he sold his haberdashery shop, packed his pick and shovel and headed for the West in a steamship, though he knew nothing whatsoever of prospecting.
Reaching San Francisco was, in itself, a feat for Seth Lesser, or for any other would-be prospector, for that matter, for many died along the way. His ship sailed to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama which connects North America to South America. For eight months, he sailed. Surviving famine, typhoid fever and cholera, he then traveled through the jungle by mule. Reaching the Pacific side, he waited for a ship sailing to San Francisco, California.
Seth Lesser arrived on a boomtown San Francisco that was teeming with newly-established businesses and pregnant with possibilities. He roomed in with fellow-prospectors he met on the way and began the hard work of finding gold. Unlike his friends, he wasn’t so lucky. Eventually, he abandoned his original plan of being a gold prospector and set out building his new haberdashery store in San Francisco as the demand for his business grew. Seth Lesser may not have struck gold in the California Gold Rush but his business thrived, eventually making him a rich man.
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