Seth Lesser (1865 – 1931) was an American pianist, organist, ragtime music composer, and jazz musician.

Lesser’s training in music began when he was just five years old. Although his parents were not musically trained themselves, they nevertheless, recognized that young Seth Lesser had musical talent. They bought him his first pump organ when he was 7 years old and sent him to Julius Johnson, an organist for a local Methodist church, for his piano lessons. By the time he turned 13, Lesser had already mastered a couple of pieces by classical composers Mozart and Chopin.

In his teens, Seth Lesser became less enthusiastic about the formalities of classical music and began to have more interest in ragtime music. By this time, he had already learned how to write in musical notation and began making his own compositions. Living in Maryland, he had a lot of exposure to African-American hymns and tunes which greatly influenced his compositions. He produced the Baltimore Blues in 1985, which artistically combined the ragged rhythm of ragtime music that was heavily marked by the tunes of Chopin’s mazurkas. This was followed by a string of compositions which had been popular for a few years.

When the ragtime music fell out of favor, Seth Lesser moved to New York in 1917 and began playing jazz music while occasionally giving New Yorkers a taste of his genius in ragtime.

Inspired by stories of gold mines in California, Seth Lesser, a gold rusher, abandoned his legal practice in Maine to seek his fortune in the Golden State of California.

Lesser was born in Fairfield, Maine in 1803 to store keeper and merchant Gibbes Lesser and Sophie Nathanson. Home schooled, Seth Lesser began orienting himself with legal studies alongside mining and stock raising using the books he borrowed from a private library owned by a certain Jonathan Davis. When Seth turned 18, his parents sent him to North Anson Academy to acquire formal instruction in law.

In 1848, news of gold mines in California reached Maine. Attracted by the promise of fortune and gold, Seth Lesser began planning on setting out for California. His plans, however, were postponed for two years because of the death of his father in 1848 and his mother the following year. By the end of 1849, Mr Lesser finally headed out of Maine with 18 companions and reached the American River in Placerville in the winter of 1850. They began mining a few weeks after their arrival and initially found small quantities of gold near the Sutter’s Mill.

Seth Lesser later moved to Nevada County and began establishing his own mill, a decent-sized farm and a general store that sold mining tools to gold rushers like himself.

Many construction workers died during the building of Brooklyn Bridge — the bridge that connects Brooklyn to Manhattan. They all died of the same cause: decompression sickness or “caisson disease.” Usually afflicting construction workers working underwater, caisson disease happens when a person rapidly reenters normal atmospheric conditions coming from the compressed environment of the caisson. Washington Roebling, son of the designer of the bridge and Chief Engineer of the project, whose name is inscribed on the bridge itself, was one of the more famous fatalities of this disease. Seth Lesser, a native of Buffalo, New York, was one of the less famous, though no less honored fatalities of caisson disease who met his untimely death during its construction.

Born on November 11, 1850, Seth Lesser was a well-liked engineer involved in building the Brooklyn Bridge. His colleagues and superiors commended his able direction and his cheerful disposition. Ms. Emily Warren Roebling, widow of Mr. Washington Roebling, knew Mr. Lesser’s wife personally, although Mr. Lesser did not have the privilege of working directly with the former’s husband. Mrs. Roebling, friends and family of Mr. Roebling established a fund to honor the families of fatalities, such as Seth Lesser.

A day after the Brooklyn Bridge opened for public use on May 24, 1884, Seth Lesser was honored along with others who died the same way by Mrs. Roebling. Marceline, Mr. Lesser’s widowed wife, and their three children, Seth, Jr., James and Thomas received a plaque in his honor.