Peter Lesley, Jr.

(Note: Often misnamed Joseph Peter Lesley, or John Peter Lesley. -- Jessica German)

Peter Lesley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lesley

J. Peter Lesley (17 September 1819 – 1 June 1903) was an American geologist.

Biography

He was born in Philadelphia. It is recorded by Sir Archibald Geikie that he was christened Peter after his father and grandfather, and at first wrote his name Peter Lesley, Jr., but disliking the Christian appellation that had been given to him, he eventually transformed his signature by putting the J. of Junior at the beginning. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, where he was trained for the ministry. Subsequently, he spent three years assisting Henry D. Rogers in the first geological survey of Pennsylvania.

On the termination of the survey in 1841, he entered Princeton Theological Seminary while also assisting Professor Rogers in preparing the final report and map of Pennsylvania. He graduated from the seminary in 1844, and in April of that year he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Philadelphia. A month later he left for Europe where he studied at the University of Halle, returning to the United States in 1845. He then worked for two years for the American Tract Society, and at the close of 1847 he joined Professor Rogers again in preparing geological maps and sections at Boston. He then accepted the pastorate of the Congregational church at Milton, Massachusetts. He remained there until 1851, when, his views having become unitarian, he abandoned the ministry, returned to Philadelphia, and entered into practice as a consulting geologist.

He made extensive and important researches in the coal, oil, and iron fields of the United States and Canada and became State geologist of Pennsylvania in 1874. From 1872 to 1878 he served as professor of geology at the University of Pennsylvania; after 1886 he was emeritus professor. The year 1863 he spent in Europe, examining the Bessemer ironworks in Sheffield for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and in 1867 he was one of ten commissioners sent by the United States Senate to the World's Fair in Paris.

Prof. Lesley was secretary and librarian of the American Philosophical Society from 1858 till 1885, and during that time prepared a catalogue of its library in three volumes (1863, 1866, and 1878). He was also a member of various other scientific societies, and was one of the original members of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1884 he was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Family

His wife, Susan Inches Lesley (1823-1904), was the daughter of Judge Joseph Lyman, of Northampton, Massachusetts. She married Prof. Lesley in 1849, and devoted herself to the work of organized charities in Philadelphia. She published Memoirs of Mrs. Anne J. Lyman (Cambridge, 1876; 2d ed., entitled Recollections of My Mother, Boston, 1886). Works

Besides many reports and numerous papers in scientific magazines, he published:

• Manual of coal and its topography: illustrated by original drawings, chiefly of facts in the geology of the Appalachian region of the United States of North America (1856)
• Guide to the iron works of the United States (1858)
• The iron manufacturer's Guide to the furnaces, forges and rolling mills of the United States (1859)
• Report on the Embreeville Iron Property, East Tennessee (1873)
• A map and profile of a line of levels along Slippery Rock Creek (1875)
• Historical Sketch of Geological Explorations in Pennsylvania (1876)
• Man's origin and destiny: sketched from the platform of the sciences, in a course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, in Boston, in the winter of 1865-6 (1868, 2. ed. 1881)

Further reading

   Mary Lesley Ames: Life and Letters of Peter and Susan Lesley (two volumes, New York, 1909)

Bibliographic details for "Peter Lesley"

• Page name: Peter Lesley
• Author: Wikipedia contributors
• Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
• Date of last revision: 6 June 2015 14:33 UTC
• Date retrieved: 14 June 2015 14:01 UTC
• Permanent link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Lesley&oldid=66576...
• Primary contributors: Revision history statistics
• Page Version ID: 665762623

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Page viii (Preface)

In deciding on his signature, I have used his baptismal name, "Peter Lesley," rather than that by which he was known in scientific and business circles,—"J. P. Lesley." The J. stood merely for "Junior," which he placed in front instead of at the end of his signature. In early life he much disliked his Christian name, and this was undoubtedly his reason for adding this initial. Later he would have been glad to drop it, but while in active business found it inconvenient to do so.

Page 1

Childhood. 1819-1832

Peter Lesley was born in Philadelphia on September 17, 1819,—Constitution Day, as he liked to call it. He was the fourth of that name in direct succession.

On the margin of one of the family papers I find these words in my father's handwriting: "Grandfather's name was Peter. His father, the Miller of Fifeshire, was Peter."

This "Miller of Fifeshire" was the first dim forefather of our race. Back of him I find no record and of him only this mention of his name.

His son, Peter the Second, was a carpenter or cabinetmaker from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who came over to this country, landed in Boston, and (sending his kit of tools round by sea) made his way on foot from there to Philadelphia, where he established himself in a shop, and lived honorably and industriously, raising a family of sons and daughters.

He married twice; lost his first family of children (or most of them); and by his second wife, Catherine Ketler (or Kitler), a Pennsylvania German woman, had five sons, Peter, James, John (who died young), Joseph, and Robert. Two daughters, Ann and Mary, were probably children by his first wife.

In a letter from my father to Professor O. N. Rood* he writes that this grandfather (Peter the Second) "hired and lived all the rest of his life in a wooden house, built on the north line of the city by William Penn for his gardener, which house and lot he afterwards purchased and added to."

In a letter of my father's of July 4, 1865, to his little daughter Margaret, are these words: "89 years ago your great-grandfather Lesley took his musket to fight for Liberty under General Washington."

These few facts are all that I know of Peter Lesley the Second, my father's grandfather. Five old paper-covered volumes, "Shop-book" records, are his only literary remains, —these and his will, of which his son Peter was the executor.

My grandfather, Peter Lesley the Third, must have been born about 1792, and was the oldest of the five sons mentioned above. He was of half Scotch and half German blood, and a man of vigorous character and strong mind. With him begins the actual family record.

As in most Scotch families, the matter of the education of the children was taken seriously; and my grandfather Peter was intended to be a university man, and was educated towards that end. But, just as he was to enter upon his collegiate career, his father died, leaving his widow Catherine and his daughters and younger sons to the care of this young Peter. There was nothing for him to do but to give up college and take to the shop, and this he cheerfully did. He was but seventeen or eighteen years old, but from that time on he seems to have been recognized as the head of the family, to whom all cares must be brought and by whom all burdens could be borne. He attended to the affairs not only of his mother and young brothers, but of certain cousins, and later, when himself married, to the affairs of his wife's parents and sisters. In the many letters from and to him there is a spirit of cheerful alacrity and warm affection in his dealings with this numerous family connection, which gives one the impression of a noble and gentle character, full both of power and affection. Such was my father's father.

My father's mother was Elizabeth Oswald Allen, daughter of John and Sarah Allen,* of Charlestown, Mass. John Allen was a printer, and, being burnt out in the Charlestown fire, he removed himself and family to Philadelphia, where he again established himself as a printer.

Bibliographic information:

• Title Life and letters of Peter and Susan Lesley, Volume 1
• Life and Letters of Peter and Susan Lesley, Mary Lesley Ames
• Library of American civilization
• Editor Mary Lesley Ames
• Publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1909
• Original from the University of California
• Digitized May 4, 2010
• Subjects Geologists
• https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=YSAuAQAAIAAJ&printsec=fron...

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M9TN-H1M

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDS7-51T

Extensive biography written by his daughter, Mary:

https://books.google.com/books?id=tzdGAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&d...