Born near the town of Floyd, Virginia, Lester attended the common schools and the Jacksonville graded school at Floyd.
He engaged in teaching in Floyd County, Virginia.
Ordained a minister in the primitive or old-school Baptist Church in 1876.
He became associate editor of Zion's Landmark, a church paper published at Wilson, North Carolina, in 1883, and editor in chief in 1920.
Lester was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses (March 4, 1889 โ March 3, 1893).
He was not a candidate for renomination in 1892.
He resumed his ministerial duties in Floyd, until 1921, when he moved to Roanoke, Virginia, and served as pastor of the Primitive Baptist Church until his death in that city on February 9, 1929. He was interred in Evergreen Cemetery.
Electoral history
1888; Lester was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 52.5% of the vote, defeating Republican John D. Blackwell.
1890; Lester was re-elected with 82.07% of the vote, defeating Independents S. C. Adams and J. Ring.