Guide to the Leslie A. Lee Papers, 1887-1908
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Leslie A. Lee Papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine
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Leslie Alexander Lee was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on September 24, 1852. His father, John Stebbins Lee, was the first president of St. Lawrence University. Lee married Elizabeth Tibbetts Almy of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The couple had three children: Elizabeth, who married Rev. Frederick Eliot of Cambridge; Sylvia Knowlton Lee (1879-1959), a professor at the Berkley School in California; and Richard Almy Lee (1886-1907), a member of the Bowdoin Class of 1908, who drowned with his roommate, John Franklin Morrison (also Bowdoin 1908), in a yachting accident at sea off Phippsburg, Maine, during a squall on July 9, 1907.
Lee was instructor of natural history (1876-1881), and professor of geology and biology (1881-1908) at Bowdoin. He was noted especially for his research expeditions in Labrador and South America (for more information see the Bowdoin College Scientific Expeditions to Labrador, 1860 and 1891).
Lee's depression over the loss of his son led to ill health, and he died in Portland, Maine, on May 20, 1908.
Accounts of the voyage of the Albatross, from Virginia, around the tip of South America, to California (November 21, 1887-April 6, 1888), including reports to newspapers (February and March 1888); the Albatross voyage plan and assignment of collections (1887-1888), a scrapbook of the voyage, letter of introduction for Lee to United States embassy officials in South America, a special passport for Lee, signed by Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, a ; correspondence (1882-1908), including to Commander G. B. Goode (1887-1888); lecture broadsides (1882-1884); photographs connected with the voyage of the "Albatross"; photographs of Lee; a scrapbook of newsclippings (1875-1891); Lee's handwritten draft of Growth and Metamorphosis of Some Marine Animals (December 19, 1882); newsclippings and obituaries.
Albatross: Account of Voyage - Plan, Assignments, Letter of Introduction, Passport
Albatross: Account of Voyage, 1887 Nov 21 - 1888 Jan 16
Albatross: Account of Voyage, 1888 Jan 17 - Feb 13
Albatross: Account of Voyage, 1888 Feb 14 - Apr 6
Albatross: Account of the Voyage - Images
Albatross: Account of the Voyage - Reports to newspapers 1888 Feb - Mar
Albatross: Account of the Voyage - Scrapbook of newspaper clippings, 1887 - 1888
Correspondence between Albatross Commander Z.L. Tanner and Commissioner G.B. Goode, 1887 - 1888
Clippings
Clippings - obituaries of Lee
Correspondence, 1882 - 1908
Growth and Metamorphosis of Some Marine Animals, 1882 Dec 19
Images of Lee
Lecture broadside 1882 Mar 13 (Brunswick)
Lecture broadside 1883 Feb 2 (5 copies)
Lecture broadside 1884 Feb 8 (Wiscasset)
Scrapbook of newspaper clippings about Lee, 1875 - 1891