Bio: Leslie, George (History - 1829)
Contact: Janet Schwarze
Surnames: LESLIE SHAFF TENEYCK

----Source: "Biographical History of Clark Jackson Counties, WI," Lewis pub. co., 1891, pg. 136.

GEORGE LESLIE, a carpenter and farmer of Thorp, Clark County, was born in Lockport, Niagara County, New York, July 26, 1829, the son of David Leslie, deceased, a native of County Derry, Ireland. He was brought by his parents to Canada when a small boy, and afterward to Vermont, where he married Mary Storm. They then moved to Ontario, thence to Niagara County, New York, settling in Lockport in 1845 to Milwaukee, in 1848 to Greene County, Wisconsin, later to northern Iowa, and subsequently to Kansas, where the father died, in Coffey County, in 1872. The parents had seven children, five now living, viz.: Margaret, John, James, George and William. One daughter, Jane, died at the age of thirty-seven years. She was married to Samuel H. Shaff, of Milwaukee, and left four children. Margaret was married to James Holmes, of Lockport, New York.

The subject of this sketch remained in Milwaukee, engaged in teaming, for three and a half years, and in the fall of 1848 came to Green County, Wisconsin, where he cast his first vote for Z. Taylor. He remained there until the fall of 1849, when he returned to Milwaukee, spent the winter there, and in May, 1850, returned to Green County. In June of the same year he went West with three companions to Fayette County, Iowa, taking six yoke of oxen, crossed the Mississippi River at Dubuque, and pastured their cattle in the streets of that city. He remained two years, and during that time helped locate the county seat, West Union, of Fayette County. In 1852 he returned to Green County, where he was engaged in breaking prairie by the acre for two years, then farmed a few years, and in 1859 removed to Harrison County, Missouri, where he bought a farm, intending to remain there, but was driven out by the drought of 1860. He next went to Chickasaw County, Iowa, where he spent the winter but, having lost everything in Missouri by the breaking out of the war in 1861, he returned to Green County and engaged in farming. In 1880 he came to Thorp, where he has since worked in the pineries, in the saw mills, at carpentering, and at various other occupations. He also owns a house and four and a half acres in Thorp.

Mr. Leslie was married December 25, 1854, to Catherine E. Teneyck, daughter of Borent Teneyck, deceased. They have had seven children, six of whom still survive: Buenavista, Mary E., Loretta J., George F., Edith M., and Hannah L. In his religious faith Mr. Leslie is a First-Day Adventist, and in his political views a Prohibitionist.