Nellie A. Ramsey Leslie (better known as N. A. R. Leslie, c. 1840s-c. 1920s) was notable as a teacher, musician and composer, working in Louisiana and Mississippi, and then in Indian Territory and Corpus Christi, Texas, where she founded a musical conservatory for girls. Born into slavery in Virginia, after emancipation she gained schooling in Ohio and moved to Louisiana to teach for the Freedmen's Bureau. She attended the Normal School of Straight University and gained further training as a teacher. Teaching in Louisiana, Mississippi, Indian Territory, and Texas, Leslie educated freedmen and their children. She was widely known as a music educator and composer, as well as performer, although none of her works is known to be extant. Early life Nellie A. Ramsey was born into slavery in Virginia. Very little is known of her early life. Scruggs says that she was born in Amelia County, Virginia and DeBoer says she was born in Petersburg, Virginia. She was the fourth daughter of Nannie and Charles P. Coles and had one brother, Solomon Melvin Coles (1844-1929/1930). After emancipation, Ramsey went north and gained some education in Ohio. She started to work as a young woman for the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865, going to Louisiana soon after the end of the war. Despite laws forbidding education of blacks, Solomon M. Coles had learned to read at age 14. He was first trained as a coachman for his master's wife. When the Civil War ended, Solomon took night courses at the Freedmen's Bureau in Norfolk, Virginia before migrating north to further his schooling. He attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After graduating, he became the first person of African descent to be admitted to the Yale Divinity School. Although he did not graduate, he was accepted as a minister in the Congregational Church. He became a missionary for the American Missionary Association, which planted black churches in the South and also sponsored teachers for freedmen. Starting in the 1870s, he was the third Congregational minister called to the black church in Corpus Christi, Texas. He also taught freedmen's children here in the Negro school. In the late 1870s, he became the first black principal of the school. About 1895 he moved to a school in San Antonio, where he taught until he reached retirement. Career Ramsey started to work for the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865. She first taught elementary school in New Orleans.