Hester Whitehurst was born of free black parents in Norfolk, Virginia, probably about 1843. She married Roswell Jerome Jeffrey in 1865. Little is known about Hester's early life except that she was well educated for the time and an accomplished musician.
In 1891 Hester and her husband moved from Boston to Rochester, New York, where his father had been a prominent pastor of the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion Church. They joined Rochester's AME Zion Church, where she served on the building committee. She often attended services at First Unitarian, however, and formed close friendships there with Susan B. Anthony and Mary Gannett. In 1895, while keeping her membership in AME Zion, Hester C. Jeffrey decided also to join the First Unitarian Church of Rochester. Her signature and Susan B. Anthony's both grace its membership book.
Hester Jeffrey was instrumental in erecting a bronze statue of Frederick Douglass in Rochester. Following the 1899 dedication ceremonies, she joined Ida B. Wells-Barnett and other black leaders in organizing the National Afro-American Council, a precursor of the NAACP by ten years.
In the 1890s Hester served the new National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (now the Federated Women's Clubs) as National Organizer for four years and later as president of the New York State Federation. She organized several interlocking groups gathered under the name Susan B. Anthony Club, an organization still active today. Its Mothers' Council was created to help mothers with young children. The Hester C. Jeffrey Club encouraged girls to seek higher education, awarding scholarships to what is now Rochester Institute of Technology. The Climbers, a club for girls, helped the elderly and needy at home and supported three young girls in a southern orphanage.
Members of all the clubs worked for women's suffrage. Susan B. Anthony's biographer, Ida Husted Harper, spoke of Hester Jeffrey as "a woman of education and influence who was often at Anthony's Rochester home," the headquarters for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Hester was invited into the Rochester Political Equality Club. She was the only local layperson chosen to give a eulogy at Susan B. Anthony's funeral service in 1906. The following year Hester arranged for the first memorial to the suffrage leader, a beautiful stained glass portrait window for the new AME Zion Church. Below Susan B. Anthony's face are her prophetic words: "Failure Is Impossible."
Ironically, Hester Jeffrey's leadership in the fight for suffrage led to her own face and name being used on an anti-suffrage flyer widely circulated in the southern states from 1918 to 1920. The caption identified Hester as one of Susan B. Anthony's closest friends and printed "NEGRO" beneath her picture.
Countering the rising tide of racism, Hester Jeffrey bridged the gulf between black and white communities by serving as officer and state delegate for both black and white organizations. She was especially active in the predominantly white Women's Christian Temperance Union and was recognized for her contributions to the Needlework Guild of America, the YWCA, and for her efforts during the First World War.
Several years before her death in 1934, Hester Jeffrey returned to Boston to live with relatives. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts, in the Glover plot beside her sister, Phoebe Whitehurst Glover. Her grave has no marker.

Source-Written by Colleen Hurst for "Liberating Ideas,"
a 2003 wall calendar by the Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society.

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Hester Jeffrey Eulogy of Susan B. Anthony

We, the colored people of Rochester, join the world in mourning the loss of our true friend,
Susan B. Anthony. Yes, a true friend of our race. Years ago, when it meant a great deal to be a
friend to the poor, downtrodden race, Susan B. Anthony stood side by side with William Lloyd
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelly Forster, Frederick Douglass and others,
fighting our battles and espousing the cause of an enslaved people.
Well do we remember the 12th of December last, at the centennial of the birthday of William
Lloyd Garrison at the Zion Church, when she stood in the pulpit and told us of the struggles of
William Lloyd Garrison and the great trials of the noble women and men who were engaged in
the anti-slavery movement. Then she spoke of her life's work, the suffrage movement, told us
how for more than sixty years she had given our race every thought of her life. She bade us to
look forward to better and brighter days that would surely come to us as a race, and as we
looked up into her sweet face and listened to her words it seemed like a benediction.
Little did we think it would be her last address to us as a race, and with her dear sister Mary, we
sympathized in her great loss. The colored churches of this city, the National and State
Federation of Colored Women, the federated clubs or the association; the little Girls of Busy
Bee, who at their last meeting stated they would send with their offering of flowers money for
Oregon, all extend to you their tender sympathy; your loss is our great loss.
The members of the Susan B. Anthony Club of this city bow their heads in sorry for the loss of
their great leader. She was our friend for many years – our champion. Sleep on, dear heart, in
peace, for we who have looked into they face; we who have heard thy voice: we who have
known something of thy great life work – we pledge ourselves to devote our time and energies
to the work thou hast left us to do.

SOURCE- https://susanbanthonyhouse.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hester-Jeffrey-Eulogy-of-Susan-B.pdf

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Hester C. Jeffrey moved to Rochester, New York from Boston, Massachusetts in 1891. She was the daughter-in-law of Reverend Rosewell Jeffrey, an affluent and prominent political activist, and the wife of R. Jerome Jeffrey. (She was sometimes referred to as Hester Jeffreys or Hester Jeffries.)

Jeffrey, an untiring organizer and an activist in her own right, became involved in many of the city's associations soon after she moved to Rochester. She was a member of the Political Equality Club and the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In the latter group she held the positions of County Superintendent as well as Secretary of the Third Ward WCTU. She was also Section President of the Needlework Guild of America. In 1897, she was appointed to serve on the (Frederick) Douglass Monument Committee.

Jeffrey founded or helped to organize a number of local African-American women's clubs among the growing black community in Rochester. In 1902, she organized the Susan B. Anthony Club for African-American women. She also served as its president. While the club's goals were in part philanthropic -- its Mothers' Council was created to help mothers with small children - -it also advocated suffrage, as its name implies.

Jeffrey was also instrumental in founding the Climbers and the Hester C. Jeffrey Club, organizations for young African-American women. One of the purposes of the Hester C. Jeffrey Club was to raise funds for young black women to take courses at the Mechanics' Institute (which later became the Rochester Institute of Technology).

As the above affiliations demonstrate, Jeffrey built and maintained ties across racial communities in Rochester. Her affiliations with both communities are reflected in the religious sphere as well as in civic and philanthropic organizations. While she often attended the First Unitarian Church and had close ties with Mary Gannett, wife of its prominent minister, she maintained an active membership in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion church, and served on various committees there.

Jeffrey's activities as a clubwoman assured her a state and national as well as a local presence. In 1902, she spoke at a Buffalo, New York convention of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), a group founded in 1896 by such prominent African-American leaders as Harriet Tubman, Rosetta Douglass Sprague (daughter of Frederick Douglass), Frances Harper, Mary Church Terrell and Ida Wells Barnett.

In 1905, Jeffrey represented the New York Federation of Colored Women (NYFCW) at a New York State Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA) convention. The same year, as president of the NYFCW, she presented its annual report when the group met in Rochester.

Jeffrey was also a friend and associate of Susan B. Anthony, and was chosen to give a eulogy at Anthony's funeral, in 1906. There, she shared the platform with William Channing Gannett (minister of the Unitarian Church), Rochester Mayor James Cutler, Rush Rhees (president of the University of Rochester), and nationally known suffragists Carrie Chapman Catt and Reverend Anna Howard Shaw. Jeffrey's eulogy reflects her many affiliations and activities:

"We, the colored people of Rochester, join the world in mourning the loss of our true friend, Susan B. Anthony....The colored churches in this city, the National and State Federations of Colored Women, the federated clubs of the association...all extend...their tender sympathy...."

In her eulogy, Jeffrey also expressed her support and advocacy for suffrage. She stated that the "members of the Susan B. Anthony Club" were filled with "sorrow" for the loss of "their great leader." She proclaimed Anthony to be a "friend for many years -- our champion." And she "pledge(d)" that the members of the Club would "devote our time and energies to the work thou has left us to do."

Jeffrey was instrumental in the establishment of the first memorial for Susan B. Anthony. The memorial, a stained glass window at the A.M.E. Zion church, consisted of a portrait of Anthony along with her famous statement -- "Failure is Impossible." It was presented to the church by Jeffrey on behalf of the Susan B. Anthony Club. Unveiled on August 20, 1907, the occasion was commemorated with speeches by suffragist Jean Brooks Greenleaf and Hannah B. Clark.

Hester Jeffrey organized and led associations that improved the lives of African-American women in Rochester. She was also able to transcend racial barriers at a time when this was no small feat. She joined forces with the suffrage movement and, as author Roslyn Terborg-Penn states, was able to move between the often-segregated worlds as part of "both the NACW and the NAWSA [National American Woman Suffrage Association] networks."

Source: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/jeffrey_hester.html

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Jeffrey, Hester C. (1842-1934)

Hester Jeffrey, an organizer and activist who became involved in the women's movement in the city of Rochester, New York, was born in Norfolk, Virginia around 1842. Jeffrey was the daughter of free parents Robert and Martha Whitehurst. In 1860 Jeffrey, along with her brother and sister, moved to Boston to live with their uncle Coffin Pitts [127433077] (Note:"Coffin Pitts, clothing dealer, no.36 Brattle Street." Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns. Fetridge and Company. 1854. p. 5.)

In 1865 she married Jerome Jeffrey, the son the Rev. Roswell D. Jeffrey, in Boston. Rev. Jeffrey was a political activist who stored the printing press of Frederick Douglass' North Star in the basement of the Favor Street A.M.E. Church in Rochester, New York.
Hester Jeffrey founded a number of local African American women's clubs among the growing African American community in Rochester in the early 1890s. In 1897, Jeffrey was appointed to serve on the (Frederick) Douglass Monument Committee, to raise funds for a statue that was going to be erected in Rochester, New York, in the honor of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, journalist, and champion of woman's suffrage. After the commemoration of the Douglass Monument, Hester Jeffrey emerged as a leader in Rochester's African American community. Jeffrey founded two women's organizations, the Climbers and the Hester C. Jeffrey Club. The Jeffrey Club was an organization to raise funds for colored women to take classes at the Mechanics' Institute (now called the Rochester Institute of Technology).
In 1902, Jeffrey organized the Susan B. Anthony Club for Colored Women and served as its first president. The club advocated women's suffrage. It also assisted mothers with small children by creating the Mother's Council. Later that year Hester Jeffrey spoke at a Buffalo, New York convention of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), a group founded in 1896 by prominent African American women activists. Jeffrey, a friend and associate of Susan B. Anthony, was chosen to give a eulogy at Anthony's funeral in 1906. Jeffrey died in Boston in 1934.

Source:http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/jeffrey-hester-c-1842-1934.

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Massachusetts, Marriage Records, 1840-1915
about Hester Whitehurst

Name: Hester Whitehurst
Birth Year: abt 1843
Birth Place: Norfolk Virginia
Marriage Date: 19 Jul 1865
Marriage Place: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Age at Marriage: 22
Father: Robert
Mother: Martha
Spouse: Jerome Jeffrey
Spouse Birth Place: Geneva New York
Spouse Age at Marriage: 25
Spouse Father: Roswell
Spouse Mother: Sarah

Her age and marriage year are different according to the 1900 census;

1900 United States Federal Census
about Hester C Jeffrey Name: Hester C Jeffrey
Age: 50
Birth Date: Sep 1849
Birthplace: Virginia
Home in 1900: Rochester Ward 4, Monroe, New York
Race: Black
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Lodger
Marital Status: Married
Marriage Year: 1876
Years Married: 24
Mother: number of living children: 0
Mother: How many children: 0

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They had one son, Jerome Jeffrey, born April 19, 1874, Boston, Mass., died April 24, 1874, Boston, Mass. Place of interment yet unknown.

Massachusetts, Birth Records, 1840-1915
about Jerome Jeffrey Name: Jerome Jeffrey
Gender: Male
Birth Date: 19 Apr 1874
Birth Place: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Father: Roswell J Jeffrey
Mother: Hester

Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841-1915
about Jerome Jeffrey Name: Jerome Jeffrey
Gender: Male
Birth Date: abt 1874
Birth Place: Boston
Death Date: 24 Apr 1874
Death Place: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Age at Death: 0
Father: Roswell
Mother: Hester C

Note in the 1900 census she stated zero living children, zero born.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her birth year is estimated and her place of birth comes from her Massachusetts marriage record. Because of sketchy records kept at the time about freeborn African Americans, we were unable to locate her exact birth date. That record also gives her parents as Robert and Martha (nee' possibly Pitts) Whitehurst.

The 1900 census states born Sept. 1849, but that year does not align with other records.

Cemetery records show she was 90 years old, likely correct.