Tulare County Biographies

JOHN H. LEACH

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
One of the comparatively few citizens of Porterville, Tulare county, Cal., who 
saw the place come into being on the prairie and have witnessed and promoted its 
development to the present time is John H. Leach. A native of Washington county, 
Ill., born January 15, 1849, he was reared and educated in Clinton county, 
whither his parents moved when he was a small child, there taking up the 
responsibilities of active life. In the spring of 1880 lie left Illinois for the 
Black Hills, where he prospected for gold and worked in the mills four years. 
After that he lived for a time in Missouri and later until 1890 in Kansas, where 
he followed the carpenter trade. In that year he located near Porterville, Cal. 
He soon bought property and later brought his family on from the east. After he 
was well started here he bought land, planted orange seed, raised the plants and 
set out five acres, which he still owns, and has given considerable attention to 
truck gardening.
In 1875 Mr. Leach married Miss Louisa Lewis, a native of Clinton county, Ill., 
and they have two children. Their daughter, Mamie E., is a member of their 
household. Their son, William  S., is an architectural draftsman and resides in 
Baltimore, Md. Mr. Leach's success is all his own and he is recognized as a 
self-made man who deserves the high place in the community that is his, not 
alone by his record as a man of affairs, but by the fine character which has 
been manifest in his entire career and the generous public spirit that makes him 
promptly responsive to every demand for the general good. Mr. Leach's mother, 
now eighty-six years, is a member of his household.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 753-754