He was born on March 25, 1901. He had a son, George Ludlow Lee Jr. He became chairman of the board of Red Devil and his son, George Ludlow Lee Jr. took over as president and CEO. He died on August 9, 1966.
Mr. Lee was owner/treasurer of the Red Devil Tool Company of Irvington, New Jersey from 1937 to 1950. He later became chairman of the board, renamed the company Red Devil, Inc.. The company is now based in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is actually run by CEO William S. Lee is the 4th generation Lee to lead the company. George was also an avid philatelist. Mr. George L. Lee, Sr., his wife Dulciena Harrison Smith Lee, and his son George L. Lee, Jr. were from Maplewood, New Jersey. The family, along with their farmhand John Landon of Montclair moved into the Cedar Hill Farm estate on the week of June 4, 1940. Mr. Lee served on the Bernards Township Planning Board and was its Vice Chairman in 1944. He and his wife, Dulcinea Harrison Smith Lee, continued operation of the flourishing fruit farm, where local markets and roadside stands were supplied with the produce. The Lee’s grew felt that the taxes in Bernards Township were becoming outrageous, so in 1946, the Lee’s moved to a bigger home called Dunleigh on the Bernardsville Mountain. The home was on Mine Mount and owned by William Stamps. The Lee’s then sold Cedar Hill to the Bissell’s in 1946. Lee had held on to many parcels of land around the Cedar Hill Farm. He chose to break up the land into various sections. In the mid-50s, Lee donated 60 acres of land to Bernards Township Board of Education to build both Cedar Hill School and Ridge High School with their associated athletic fields. He also donated the property to the Township where the War Memorial Park stands today.
Locals know the name Lee as the Ridge High School field was named after him as well as the high school mascot, the “Red Devil”. While the Red Devils are named after George Lee’s company, the color is green because rival Bernardsville had red uniforms, so they chose green. The Red Devil Company was actually founded as Smith & Hemenway Company, Inc. While the founder was on a trip to Sweden, Landon P. Smith, heard a blacksmith remark “those little red devils” after sparks from a forge singed his arm. The name stuck in Smith’s mind and upon his return to the States he began to label many of the tools he sold with the RED DEVIL® trade name.
