While she was yet a child, her parents removed to Amherst, Massachusetts, where she grew up amid the intellectual and social influences characteristic of a New England college town, and formed numerous acquaintances with educated and professional people, that were of immense value to her in subsequent life.

[6] At the Ipswich Female Seminary, she was associated with various instructors including Mrs. Girard, sister of the historian George Bancroft, and with Zilpah P. Grant Banister, the school's principal, with whom Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke College, was at that time a co-worker.

[6][4] Lyman began to teach at a very early age, filling subordinate positions successfully at Gorham Academy, Maine; in Massachusetts; and at Mrs. Gray's Seminary for Ladies in Petersburg, Virginia.

Her school soon gained the confidence of the public, till it drew its pupils from all parts of Canada and the northern and eastern U.S.[6] While a resident of Montreal, she was recognized as a most active member of the Christian church, and an influential promoter of movement for the intellectual as well as the moral and religious benefit of the community.

Lyman's Christianity was of a definite orthodox type, pronounced and aggressive, though tempered by a naturally genial spirit, and catholic on principle toward those who differed from her on points she deemed unessential.

[8] She continued the school in Montreal until 1865,[6] when, at the age of 49, she was summoned back to the U.S. to aid in the organization and direction of Vassar, a college for women, whose aims were, in some respects, higher than those of any similar institution in the world.

Her New England training, her knowledge of college life, her extensive acquaintance with educationists at home and abroad, her familiarity with the critical questions then under discussion respecting woman's education, her varied observation of men and manners, and her life-long experience in the management of the young, all made her counsel invaluable in the moulding of this institution.