California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

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

JAMES C. LESLIE. As a contractor and builder James C. Leslie has contributed many of the 
important material improvements to the Ojai Valley, where he has lived for nearly thirty years. 
Mr. Leslie is also one of the prominent bee growers in this valley, and is a citizen whose 
influence and associations have always been on the side of progress.
He early learned to rely upon himself, and his success has been a matter of hard work and of 
long continued concentration of energies toward the one end of making his service count for 
something in the world. He was born in Farnham, Province of Quebec, Canada, January 19, 
1862, a son of John and Betsy Ann (Tilson) Leslie. His education in the public schools was 
finished at the age of sixteen. The next four years he spent in a butter and cheese factory. 
Wisely looking ahead and seeking a new field in which to try his energies, he came west to 
California.
His first location in this state was at Pomona, where he leased and operated the Brown's Hotel 
until 1888. In that year he came to Nordhoff and for two years was employed on Mr. S. D. 
Thacher's ranch. He had also perfected himself in the mechanical trade of carpenter and 
gradually all his time was given to that work, being employed as carpenter for the Thacher 
School and for a number of other individuals in and around Nordhoff. He finally capitalized his 
skill and experience as a carpenter, and in 1908 engaged in the building and contracting 
business. Mr. Leslie is credited with having constructed nearly all the buildings in the Ojai 
Valley east of Nordhoff, and he has also been employed as the contractor and builder of over 
twenty of the handsome structures which adorned the campus of the Thacher School for Boys, 
but eight of these were later destroyed by fire.
Other interests have also claimed his attention. In 1889, the year after he came to Nordhoff, he 
took up a homestead of eighty-five acres northeast of the town, and his development work has 
made that a very valuable property. Twelve acres had been planted in eucalyptus trees. He 
early saw the advantages of bee culture in the valley, and beginning with a few hives he now 
has 200 producing colonies and has a considerable income from this source alone.
Mr. Leslie is a member of the Boyd Club of Nordhoff, of the Modern Woodmen of America, is a 
republican, and a trustee in the Presbyterian Church of Nordhoff. Near Montreal, Canada, in 
April, 1885, he married Miss Eliza Ann Hawthorne, a native of Canada and daughter of James 
Hawthorne. There are two children. Albert, now twenty-six years of age, is associated with his 
father in the contracting business. Edna has been liberally educated and is a teacher at 
Nordhoff.