i9o6] CHANCE— BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF J. P. LESLEY. vii 



Professor Lesley was born in Philadelphia on the seventeenth 

 day of September in the year 1819. His father was Peter Lesley and 

 his grandfather also was Peter Lesley and both were cabinet makers. 

 The son was also named Peter Lesley, but disliking the form Peter 

 Lesley, Jr., at an early age he began writing it J. P. Lesley (Junior 

 Peter Lesley) and this form he retained throughout life, although 

 at times in his official capacities he was designated as Peter Lesley 

 (which the writer understood him personally to say he regarded as 

 his legal name) and in earlier years he occasionally wrote it J. 

 Peter Lesley and also Peter Lesley, Jr. 



He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1838 — he 

 was then not quite nineteen years old — and the next year obtained an 

 appointment as assistant on the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania 

 under Professor Henry D. Rogers, who assigned him to duty at 

 Pottsville with James S. Whelpley, a young assistant who had great 

 ability as a topographical geologist. Whelpley shortly left the survey 

 and Lesley continued the work that and the succeeding year in 

 that region, and later in the bituminous coal-fields of Somerset and 

 Fayette counties and in 1841 did additional work in the region of the 

 Allegheny River and its tributaries. 



In 1 84 1 he entered Princeton Theological Seminary where he 

 completed the course three years later and was licensed by the Phila- 

 delphia Presbytery. During these years,- his vacations were spent in 

 constructing a geological map of Pennsylvania and in drawing many 

 illustrations for Rogers' final report. 



In 1844 he went to England and from there tramped through 

 France and Switzerland, returning the following year to Philadel- 

 phia. 



After serving for two seasons as a distributer of Presbyterian 

 tracts for the American Tract Society, he went to Boston to assist 

 Professor Rogers in redrawing the Pennsylvania maps and illustra- 

 tions for the final report. 



In 1848 he became the pastor of the Congregationalist Church 

 at Milton, Massachusetts, and soon after married Miss Susan Inches 

 Lyman (February 13, 1849) at Northampton, Massachusetts.^ 



^ While Mrs. Lesley was still living at the time of his death, she survived 

 him but six months, passing away January i6th, 1904. She was of charming 



