J. Peter Lesley Papers, American Philosophical Society

Table of contents

Abstract

After a brief career in the Congregational church, J. Peter Lesley left the ministry in 1852 to work full-time as a geologist. Having gained experience in structural geology and stratigraphy with the First Pennsylvania Geological Survey (1836-1842), Lesley became an expert in the geology of coal, working for the Pennsylvania Railroad and other corporations and conducting some of the first systematic studies of the state's hydrocarbon resources. A long-time professor at the University of Pennsylvania, he was elected to the APS in 1856, serving variously as its librarian, secretary, and vice president, and he was selected as Director of the Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey (1875-1889). Lesley died in 1903.

The Lesley Papers include letters to and from Peter Lesley and his wife, Susan on geology, coal and iron mining, abolition, educational reform, organized charity, and Unitarianism. The collection offers important insight into academic and applied geology in late 19th century Pennsylvania, the development of the coal and iron industries, as well as into the Lesleys' progressive social and intellectual milieu. It is divided into three series: Lesley's general correspondence, his correspondence with his brother Joseph, and microfilms of Lesley's research notes.

Background note
Scope & content
Administrative information
Additional information
- Related material
Added entries
Contact information
Collection overview
- Series I. General correspondence, 1826-1898
- Series II. Correspondence with Joseph Lesley, 1850-1887
- Series III. Notebooks, 1839-1896
Collection inventory
- Series I. General correspondence, 1826-1898
- Notebooks (History of Science Film 12)

Background note

When J. Peter Lesley (1819-1903) graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, he intended for the Presbyterian ministry, but when ill health intervened, he was set off on a path that would make him one of the most influential geologists in 19th century Pennsylvania. In order to help rebuild his strength and restore his health, Lesley accepted an appointment with the first Pennsylvania Geological Survey under the direction of Henry Darwin Rogers and engaged in structural and stratigraphic work and topographical and geological mapping in the Pennsylvania anthracite belt. By 1841, he had recovered sufficiently to return to his divinity studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, but continued all the while to work for the Survey on a part time basis, mostly in preparing maps.

After a trip to Europe in 1844 to polish off his ministerial education, Lesley accepted a pulpit in rural central Pennsylvania, and moved three years later to take the helm of a Congregational church in Milton, Massachusetts. There he came into contact with a politically progressive, intellectually stimulating crowd that included Lydia Maria Child, James Freeman Clarke, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and the fringes of the Transcendentalists and reformers. A young Unitarian member of this circle, Susan Inches Lyman, became Lesley's wife in February, 1849, and both shared their associates' progressive political and social vision.

As he had all along, Lesley continued to work on an occasional basis for the Geological Survey until 1852, when a long-standing conflict with Rogers over credit for field assistants led him to resign. That year marked an even more profound change in Lesley's life, as he also decided to leave the church and return home to Pennsylvania. Coinciding with the period of extraordinary expansion in the coal and rail industries in Pennsylvania, Lesley devoted himself fully to geological work. Employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and other corporations, Lesley was an important cartographer - one of the first to employ contour lines to represent topography - and was an important writer and synthesizer of knowledge about the coal and iron regions. He is credited with some of the first systematic studies of coal, oil, and gas resources in the state.

Lesley's rising prestige in scientific circles led to his election to the American Philosophical Society in 1856, where he instilled himself in the Society's leadership, serving as librarian (1858-1885), secretary (1859-1887), and vice president (1887-1898). During his tenure as librarian, he introduced a new system of arranging books by subject, anticipating in some ways Melvil Dewey's system, but employing small spine labels arranged in the colors of the spectrum to represent the areas of knowledge. He was, as well, a charter member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.

Lured to the University of Pennsylvania as Professor of Mining in 1859, Lesley became a fixture there, too. Lesley's acquisition of a major collection of fossils, rocks, and minerals from James Hall, state geologist of New York, helped consolidate geology as a major subject of study at Penn. Lesley later became Professor of Geology and Mining Engineering and Dean of the Science Faculty, and in 1875, he was appointed Dean of the newly formed Towne Scientific School.

The continuing importance of the oil industry to Pennsylvania's economy led to calls for a second state Geological Survey, and for the duration of its existence, from 1874 to 1889, Lesley served as Director. An immense operation by the standards of the first Survey, at least, the second Survey was also immensely productive, issuing dozens of publications on the topography, geology, paleontology, and mineral resources of the state. He was in the midst of preparing a state-mandated final report for the Survey in 1893 when he suffered a complete breakdown. He never recovered.

Lesley died in 1903. One of his two daughters, Mary, married the prominent Minneapolis businessman, Charles W. Ames (1855-1921), and the other, Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown (1857-1944), became a well known artist, some of whose portraits hang in the APS.

Scope and content

Far more than the record of the professional activities of an important geologist, the J. Peter Lesley Papers reflect the intellectual and social lives of a prominent and politically progressive Philadelphian during the mid-19th century. Seen in the context of the expansion of one of the state's primary extractive industries, the Lesley collection is an important resource for examining the growth and direction of the state's economy and the relationship of science, industry, and the state. His correspondence, including letters written by and to him, also document the activities of both the First and Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey, the teaching of geology at the University of Pennsylvania, and the professional interests and relationships of natural scientists during the last half of the nineteenth century.

Lesley was in regular correspondence with most of the major figures in American geology, and particularly those with an interest in coal. The collection includes over 400 letters from Lesley's close friend Leo Lesqueureux, the Swiss-American paleobotanists who specialized in coal measure plants, but there is a substantive correspondence with James D. Dana, James F. Whitney, James Hall, Henry Darwin Rogers, Louis Agassiz, Arnold Guyot, David Dale Owen, and others. The collection is particularly strong in materials relating to the operation and results of the Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey.

Susan Lesley's correspondence is as interesting as Peter's. Her circle of friends included a number of progressive thinkers, many associated with the Transcendentalist and Unitarian communities in Boston (e.g. James Freeman Clarke, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker), and she corresponded as well with a number of prominent antislavery figures, including Theodore Dwight Weld, Samuel J. May, Frederick Douglass, and Maria Chapman. One of her closest friends and most regular correspondents was the writer and reformer Lydia Maria Child, from whom she received a total of 54 letters.

The Lesley Papers are divided into three series:

Series I. General Correspondence, 1826-1898 (29 boxes, 7.25 linear feet)
Series II. Correspondence with Joseph Lesley, 1850-1887 (2 boxes, 0.5 linear feet)
Series III. Notebooks, 1839-1896 (6 reels of microfilm)

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Gift of Charles Lesley Ames, 1942, and transferred by the Minnesota Historical Society, 1972. Letters to Joseph Lesley were the gift of Allen Lesley and Joseph Lesley, 1976. Six daguerreotypes of J. Peter Lesley and Susan Lesley were donated to the APS in 2000, along with an autobiography of Léo Lesquereux sent to Lesley. The Lesquereux autobiography is catalogued separately.

Preferred citation

Cite as: J. Peter Lesley Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Alternate formats

The Lesley Papers have been microfilmed as History of Science Film 12, reels 1-12

Additional information

Related material

The papers of Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown, held in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, contain approximately ten letters from her father.

The papers of Charles W. Ames (22 cu. feet, 1803-1986), son-in-law of Peter and Susan Lesley, are held at the Minnesota Historical Society.

The APS houses several maps made by Lesley, including a manuscript geological map of Wythe County, Virginia, and several printed maps produced by the Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey.