Series VI. PAPERS OF SUSAN INCHES LYMAN LESLEY (1823-1904) AND J. PETER LESLEY (1819-1903), 1832-1915 (#22.2-111.19, 238.6, FD.2, F+D.4-F+D.7, OD.2, SD.1, Mem.1)

Susan Inches Lyman Lesley was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1823 to Anne Jean Robbins Lyman and Judge Joseph Lyman III. She was educated at the Deerfield School, and at George B. Emerson's school for girls in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1848, while staying with relatives in Milton, Massachusetts, she met J. Peter Lesley, a young Congregationalist minister. Over the objections of some of her family members, who had envisioned a more financially stable life for her, Susan married J. Peter Lesley in 1849.

J. Peter Lesley was born in Philadelphia in 1819 to Elizabeth Oswald Allen and Peter Lesley II. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, and, after graduating in 1838, he worked for three years on the First Pennsylvania Geological Survey. He then attended the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1841 to 1844; after graduation he took classes at the University of Halle in Germany and traveled throughout Europe. He sold religious tracts for the American Tract Society for a few years, and then accepted a post in a Congregationalist church in Milton, Massachusetts, where he met Susan Inches Lyman.

Susan and J. Peter Lesley lived in Milton, Massachusetts, for several years. While there, they became involved with the abolitionist cause, and harbored a fugitive slave from North Carolina named Mary Walker. In 1851, J. Peter Lesley felt his religious views had moved significantly away from Congregationalist beliefs; he abandoned his post and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where he resumed work as a geologist. Daughter Mary Lesley Ames, named for Mary Walker, was born in Philadelphia in 1853; Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown in 1857. J. Peter Lesley worked as a geologist and cartographer for the Pennsylvania Railroad and other private companies; his work often kept him away from home, and he wrote prolific letters to his wife. Susan Inches Lyman Lesley often took boarders into her Philadelphia home to make ends meet. In 1866, J. Peter Lesley suffered a nervous breakdown, and subsequently he and Susan Inches Lyman Lesley left their children in Philadelphia and traveled to Europe (where J. Peter Lesley served as a United States Commissioner to the 1867 Exposition in Paris) and Egypt. As the Lesley daughters grew older, they also traveled to Europe with their father, and Margaret studied art in France in the early 1880s.

Susan Inches Lyman Lesley was active in social reform causes in Philadelphia, including the Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania. The Lesleys were members of the Germantown Unitarian Church, and were active in the formation of the Spring Garden Unitarian Society. Charles Gordon Ames was minister at both these churches in the 1870s and 1880s, and the Ames and Lesley families became close. J. Peter Lesley served as Professor of Mining, Professor of Geology and Mining Engineering, and as Dean of the Science Faculty at University of Pennsylvania. He led the Second Geologic Survey of Pennsylvania from 1874 to 1889. He was named Pennsylvania State Geologist in 1874, served as Secretary of the American Iron Association, was a member of and elected Librarian of the American Philosophical Society, and helped found the National Academy of the Sciences. Susan Inches Lyman Lesley published a book about her mother's life, Recollections of My Mother, Mrs. Anne Jean Lyman, of Northampton , in 1899.

Both J. Peter Lesley and Susan Inches Lyman Lesley suffered from ill health. J. Peter Lesley had several physical breakdowns, often coupled with depressive spells. Susan Inches Lyman Lesley was often ill as a young woman, and suffered several miscarriages. The Lesleys moved to Milton, Massachusetts, at the end of their lives. J. Peter Lesley died there in 1903; Susan Inches Lyman Lesley in 1904.