Isaac Lea

Isaac Lea (March 4, 1792 – December 8, 1886) was an American publisher, conchologist and geologist. He was a partner in the publishing businesses Matthew Carey & Sons; Carey, Lea & Carey; Carey, Lea & Blanchard; and Lea & Blanchard.

He authored multiple books describing the freshwater mussel genus Unio and named 1,842 species of fifty genera of freshwater and land mollusks. He sparked a scientific controversy amongst geologists when he published about his discovery of fossilized footprints in Mount Carbon, Pennsylvania, that he incorrectly proposed were from a reptile from the Devonian Period over 360 million years old. The fossil has since been identified as that of an amphibian from the Mississippian Age over 330 million years old.

He served as president of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia from 1858 to 1863 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 1860.

Early life and education Lea was born on March 4, 1792, in Wilmington, Delaware. His grandparents, John and Hannah Hopton Lea, emigrated to the Province of Pennsylvania with William Penn in 1699. His parents were James J. Lea, a merchant, and Elizabeth Gibson Lea. He was studying to be a physician, but began working at his brother John's import business in Philadelphia at the age of 15. In 1820, he married Frances Ann Carey, daughter of noted publisher Mathew Carey.

He received an LL.D. degree from Harvard in 1853.

Business career His father-in-law Mathew Carey founded the Matthew Carey & Company publishing company and brought his son Henry Charles Carey and Lea in as partners and changed the company name to Matthew Carey & Sons. Matthew retired in 1824 and another of his sons joined the firm and the name was changed to Carey, Lea & Carey. In 1833, William A. Blanchard was brought on as a partner and the firm was briefly known as Carey, Lea & Blanchard until Henry Charles Carey retired in 1836 and the firm name was changed again to Lea & Blanchard. The publishing house became one of the most successful in America, and was known for publishing items such as The Encyclopedia Americana and a dictionary of German lexicon.

In 1815, Lea joined the Academy of Natural Sciences and published his first paper on minerals found in the Philadelphia area in 1817. He was especially interested in freshwater and land mollusks. He studied mollusks from the Ohio River submitted to the Academy of Natural Sciences by Major Stephen Harriman Long and shells collected by his brother near Cincinnati. and also served as president of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1858–1863), both based in Philadelphia. Lea served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1860.

Family His two sons, Henry Charles Lea and Matthew Carey Lea achieved distinction in scholarly fields and the family publishing business. The brothers married the Jaudon sisters and their children also joined the family business, which ultimately became Lea & Febiger. Henry Charles Lea (September 19, 1825 – October 24, 1909) was an American historian, civic reformer, and political activist in Philadelphia. Mathew Carey Lea (1823–1897) was a lawyer as well as founder of mechanochemistry and early photographer.

Death and legacy He died on December 8, 1886, in Philadelphia and was interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery. In 1829 Edgar Allan Poe wrote a poem dedicated to Lea titled "To Isaac Lea".

Three mollusks were named in his honor, Crenella leana Dall, 1897, Lymnaea leai F.C. Baker, 1907 and Periploma leanum (Conrad, 1831).

The National Museum at Washington now has his immense collection of freshwater mussels from the family Unionidae, as well as other collections.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has the records of Lea & Febiger, as well as predecessor companies. ) – named for Annie Law