Ralph Leete

The Weekly Telegraph, Pomeroy, OH 2 May 1854 p2

Ralph Leete was born in Tioga County, Pa. 12 Jan 1822, and moved to Lawrence County, Ohio, in 1844. He lived a full life, starting as a school teacher, then a lawyer, going on to being a Prosecuting Attorney, and finally served two terms in the Ohio Legislature.

Ralph Leete, Esq., of Ironton, has addressed a note to the editor of the Register, stating that if the editor does not retract certain charges made in the Register against him (Leete,), he will commence suit for slander.  The Register rejoins as follows:

“We have said nothing but the truth concerning Mr. Leete, which we can easily substantiate and cannot possibly retract.  We have not yet done justice to the gentleman in this war against his neighbors and townsmen, and it would be a bad showing for us to retract what little justice we have done him.”

Ironton Register 11 July 1895

Called on Lincoln. – During the war, our townsman, Hon. Ralph Leete called on President Lincoln.  He (Leete) was taking a walk one night with Congressman Casey when the latter wound about into the back way of the White House, about 10 o’clock, and was soon ushered into the presence of Mr. Lincoln.  Casey introduced Leete as a young Douglas democrat from Ohio.

Mr. Lincoln arose and, extending both hands, took Mr. Leete by the hands and, holding them, – said substantially: “I am glad to see you; I remember your name.  We sent you 1400 stands of arms the other day.  Chase said you might need something of the kind along the border.”

It was so – Mr. Leete, as Chairman of the Military Committee in Ironton, had received 1400 stand of arms, and the President remembered all about it and the persons connected with it.  Then the party talked of the Fremont proclamation and Mr. Lincoln’s revocation, which Mr. Leete didn’t like.  Mr. Lincoln expressed pleasure in support of Mr. Douglas and his friends.  Mr. Leete has always been an admirer of Lincoln.

RALPH LEETE REMEMBERED AS ANNIVERSARY NEARS
The Centennial recalls his Name

A name that should not be permitted to vanish from the memorials of Lawrence County is that of Hon. Ralph Leete. Upon the death of his son, Hon. Fred. G. Leete, more than two years ago, the family name no longer appears in city directories or telephone books, the first time since the town was founded in 1849.

Just what the name Leete has meant for Ironton for almost one hundred years is a long story. The Negro population should know that one of the best friends of their race in Lawrence county’s history was Ralph Leete, who came to this county in 1843, and in 1850 performed a service for their race that should place his name upon a memorial in their hall of fame.

First, let us review what the early records of Lawrence County say about this deed of befriending the colored race.

In 1848, Mr. Leete was elected prosecuting attorney of Lawrence County and re-elected in 1850. On the 6th of June 1850, a family of Negroes, nine children of Peyton Polley, at Burlington, were kidnapped in the night and taken across the Ohio river, and sold into slavery. Four were sent to Virginia and five down the river to Maysville, where they were separated and sent forward by land for the purpose of transportation by steamboat from Louisville to New Orleans.

Ralph Leete, moved by impulse, engaged the assistance of a Mr. Watson, then of Catlettsburg, Ky., to identify those sent southward. They set out in pursuit of both the kidnappers and their victims. The kidnappers made good their escape, but the Negro family was, however, saved. A girl was detained at Lexington, two at Frankfort, one at Shelbyville, and the other at Louisville.

In each place, Mr. Leete retained counsel, upon his own responsibility, caused suits to be brought in several localities for their freedom, which was established. The children all returned to their parents in Lawrence County.

The State of Ohio promptly took the burden of prosecuting those suits off the hands of Mr. Leete and paid him all his expenses.

The Hon. Ralph Leete was born in Tioga County, Penn., on Jan. 12, 1822. He was of the seventh generation from Governor William Leete, one of the founders of the Commonwealth of New Haven, and one of the 40 planters who, with their families, left England in 1639 and landed in the woods of the New England states.

At 14, after a grade school education, he obtained a job as a mail carrier between Wellsboro and Smithport, Pa., at $5 a month. Four days each week, he rode horseback between the two communities. The route passed over the Allegheny Mountains range, mostly forest. While riding his horse, he read books and the three unoccupied days he studied.

In 1839 he was engaged with a corps of engineers who made the preliminary survey of the Sunbury & Erie railroad. During 1840 he was engaged as a store clerk in Erie, Pa. During 1841 and 1842, he attended the Grand River Institute, a manual labor school, in Ashtabula County, Ohio. He then taught school at $12 a month in Lycoming County, Pa.

In October 1843, he, with Dr. J. C. Billings, left in pursuit of a location to better themselves. They purchased a skiff in York State and descended the Allegheny river – 400 miles to Pittsburgh- where they took passage to Louisville, Ky. At Louisville, the two friends separated.

At the advice of a friend in Louisville, to whom he had a letter of introduction, he came to Lawrence County, which was said to be booming. He went from Hanging Rock to Buckhorn Furnace, where he got a winter teaching school job at 50 cents a quarter, which was twelve weeks of work. Of course, he had to do other work to earn his room and board.

At Buckhorn and Mount Vernon Furnace, he taught for part of three years earning money enough to pay current expenses while so engaged to pursue the study of law, and in 1844 began a systematic course in law under instructions of William V. Peck. In April 1847, he passed an examination, was admitted to practice law, and opened an office at Burlington, the county seat of Lawrence. The next year he was elected prosecuting attorney.

He was moderately successful in the practice of law but too much inclined to engage in a political contest to attain eminence at the bar. In view of the fact that both the Democratic and the Whig parties, in 1848, in their national platforms, evaded the question of excluding slavery from the territory acquired from Mexico, a question that had been raised by the Wilmot proviso, Mr. Leete, with Dr. C. Hall, of Burlington, and John Campbell, left the Democratic party, and J. F. Wheeler, the Proctor Brothers, and James O. Willard left the ranks of the Whig party.

They called a county convention at Burlington to elect delegates to the free-soil convention in Buffalo. Strong resolutions were adopted against the admission of any more slave states into the Union. Delegates were appointed, and Messrs. Campbell and Willard attended the convention at Buffalo and aided in the nomination of Van Buren and Adams.

An active and aggressive campaign was made in the county. Mr. Leete and Dr. Hall held and addressed thirty meetings. The Buffalo ticket received fifty-six votes in the county, which was the foundation of the Republican party in Lawrence County.

Mr. Leete was elected to the lower branch of the State Legislature in 1858, was made chairman of the committee on corporations, and was also a finance committee member. His principal work in that general assembly was the aid given by him to repeal the ten percent interest law and reconstruct the public finances by separating the public money from banking institutions and the semi-annual collection of taxes, with the present method of keeping public accounts.

At that time, non-resident stockholders in the local banks were in the habit of procuring injunctions from the federal courts to restrain county treasurers from collecting taxes as assessed under the requirements of the constitution and state statutes. The county officers applied to the general assembly for relief. The memorials etc., were referred to Mr. Leete’s committee.

He reported some joint resolutions defining the limits of federal jurisdiction as to the domestic measures of the state, which was supported by an argument of much labor and embodied in an octavo pamphlet of 180 pages, in which he maintained the supremacy of the state judiciary over all questions relating to the domestic policy of the people of the state. The argument carried him forward to maintaining the state rights doctrine, as asserted by John Taylor of Caroline, Jefferson, and Calhoun.

During the war, he was secretary of the county military committee and gave much of his time to the public cause. In the summer of 1861, a thousand and stand of Enfield rifles with 100,000 rounds of ammunition were placed at his disposal by the secretary of war to be used at his discretion in arming Union citizens in the border states of Virginia and Kentucky.

Through the agency of his friend S. P. Chase, then in the treasury, he was offered places of high trust and responsibility under President Lincoln’s administration, which he did not accept on the ground that he did not wish to commit himself in favor of some of the measures of civil policy than before congress, especially the grants of the public domain to railroad corporations, the charter of the national banks and confiscation of property of persons engaged in the rebellion.

The seizure of the person of Jefferson Davis after the close of the war, his indictment for treason in a federal court, and long confinement in the military prison at Fortress Monroe drew from Mr. Leete an elaborate discussion of his case, who maintained that the United States could not detain, or even put him upon trial, without a gross and palpable violation of the public law, on the ground that seceding states had organized and maintained a government de facto, raised and equipped armies, administered law, and had for a term of years successfully excluded the federal government from its territory; that it had enjoyed full belligerent rights, and that therefore the contest between the sections of the Union had ceased to be a mere rebellion, and that it was grave and solemn war, and that the parties were entitled to the same rights as independent nations at war with one another. The discussion was first printed in the Crisis at Columbus and was reprinted by the leading journals east and west.

At the close of the war, Lawrence County was almost destitute of even common wagon roads, and he gave the matter his attention, projected and procured several leading roads through the county, wrote and talked the matter up among the people, and secured legislation which has resulted in the construction of necessary roads and bridges.

In 1867 he was again elected to the general assembly of the state, was made chairman of the finance committee, and was the author of a bill for the taxation of United States bonds, which became a law, but was never enforced. He drew the bill, which became a law, governing the purchase of sites for and the construction of county buildings and bridges; also the act for the construction of town halls, and the act establishing and fixing the size of and the device upon all the official seals of the state.

Obituary

HON. RALPH LEETE

IWR 20 July 1905

Passed to His Long Home.  His Life Was One Well Spent.

Death closed the career of Hon. At midnight Friday night, Ralph Leete, one of the most honored and respected pioneer citizens of this county, after a long illness, due to the infirmity of advanced age.

Mr. Leete was born at Tioga, Tioga county, Pa., on January 12th, 1822, came to this county in 1844, and has since been a constant resident of this county.

He began life in this county by teaching school at Buckhorn Furnace, where he continued to teach for a period of three years, after which he began the practice of law at Burlington, the county seat at that time, but removed to this city when Ironton was made the county seat and continued the practice of his chosen profession until compelled to retire from actual work because of his advanced age.

Mr. Leete served this county as Prosecuting Attorney.  He also served two terms in the Ohio Legislature.  He was married to Miss Harriet E. Hand in 1846.  Of this union, five children were born.

• William H. is one of the leading attorneys in Lima, Ohio.
• Mrs. Edith I. Hamilton, wife of Attorney John Hamilton of this city.
• Fred G., of this city,
• Mrs. Elisabeth Jenkins, wife of Captain Jefferson Jenkins of Huntington, W. Va.,
• Dr. R. H. Leete, of Prestonsburg, Ky., all of whom survive Mr. Leete but Mrs. Leete, who passed away in 1879, and Mrs. John Hamilton, who died two years ago last January.

Mr. Leete was married a second time in 1881 to Mrs. Jane Bancroft, a sister of David Wilmot, the author of the famous Wilmot Proviso, which was introduced in the United States Congress in 1846. Mrs. Leete died in 1896.

Mr. Leete was an uncle of Horace L. Chapman of Columbus and is survived by one brother, Horace Leete, of Portsmouth.

The funeral services over the remains took place from the residence of Fred G. Leete at 211 Park Avenue at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.  The interment was at Woodland Cemetery.

From Hardesty’s history of the United States, we copy the following interesting facts:

In the common schools of Tioga county Ralph Leete acquired the rudiments of learning.  At fourteen, he obtained a position as a mail carrier between Wellsboro, the county seat of Tioga county, and Smithport, McKean county, at $5.00 a month.  Four days each week on horseback were required to perform the service.

The route passed over the Allegheny range of mountains and was mostly a forest.  His time along the road was occupied with reading.  The three unoccupied days were spent studying history, arithmetic, and language.  In 1839 he was engaged with a corps of engineers who made the preliminary survey of the Sunbury and Erie railroad, between the harbor of Erie and Lockhaven, on the Susquehanna.

In 1840 he was a clerk in a country store in Erie county, Pa. During 1841 and 1842, he attended the Grande River Institute, a manual labor school, at Austenburgh, Ohio.  In the winter and spring of 1842 and 1843, he taught at a common school near Jerseyshore, in Lycoming County, Pa., at $12.00 a month.

Before that time, his parents had moved from Tioga to Potter county, Pa.  In May 1842, he returned to Potter county, walking from Jerseyshore to Coudersport, 72 miles in two days, over the Allegheny mountains.

In October, he, with Dr. J. C. Billings, left in pursuit of a location.  They purchased a skiff in York State and descended the Allegheny river, 400 miles to Pittsburg, where they took passage to Louisville, Ky.  At Louisville, the two friends separated.  Mr. Leete, under the advice of Geo. D. Prentice, to whom he had been given a letter of introduction, returned to Ohio and found a school to teach at Buckhorn Furnace, Lawrence county, Ohio, at fifty cents a quarter per pupil of 12 weeks.

At Buckhorn and Mt. Vernon Furnace, he taught for three years, earning money enough to pay current expenses while so engaged to pursue the study of law, and in 1844 began a systematic course in law, under instructions of the late Wm. V. Peck, after several years of close application, was examined and admitted to the bar in April 1847 and opened an office at Burlington.  In 1848 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Lawrence county and re-elected n 1850.

6th of June, 1850, a family of negroes, nine children of one Peyton Polley, was kidnaped in the county at night and carried across the Ohio River and sold into slavery, four of whom were sent to Virginia and five down the river to Maysville, where they were separated and sent forward by land for the purpose of transportation by steamboat from Louisville to New Orleans.  By the impulse, Ralph Leete engaged Mr. Walton’s assistance, then of Catlettsburg, Ky., to identify those sent southward.

They set out in pursuit of both kidnappers and their victims.  The negro family, however, was saved.  One girl was detained at Lexington, two at Frankfort, one at Shelbyville, and the other at Louisville.  In each place, Mr. Leete retained counsel, upon his own responsibility, caused suits to be brought in the several localities for their freedom, which was established. The negro children all returned to their parents in Lawrence County, Ohio.  The State of Ohio promptly took the burden of prosecuting those suits off the hands of Mr. Leete and paid him all his expenses.

Mr. Leete was elected to the lower branch of the State Legislature in 1858, made chairman of the committee on corporations, and was also a finance committee member.  His principal work in that general assembly was the aid he gave to repeal the 10 percent interest law and reconstruct the public finances by separating the public money from banking institutions and the semi-annual collection of taxes, with the present method of keeping public accounts.

During the war, he was secretary of the county military committee and gave much of his time to the public cause.  In the summer of 1861, a thousand stand of Enfield rifles with 100,000 rounds of ammunition were placed at his disposal by the secretary of war to be used at his discretion in arming Union citizens in the border states of Virginia and Kentucky.

Through the agency of his friend, S. P. Chase, then in the treasury, he was offered places in high trust and responsibility, which he did not accept on the ground that he did not wish to commit himself in favor of some of the measures of civil policy than before Congress, especially the grants of the public domain to railroad corporations, the charter of the national banks, and confiscation of the property of persons engaged in rebellion.

The seizure of the person of Jefferson Davis after the close of the war, __ indictments for treason in the Federal Courts, and long confinement in the military prison at Fortress Monroe drew from Mr. Leete an elaborate discussion of his case, who maintained that the United States could not detain, or even put him upon trial without a gross and palpable violation of the public law.

While in the legislature, Mr. Leete drew a bill that became law, governing the purchase of sites for the construction of county buildings and bridges; also the act for the construction of town halls, and the act establishing and fixing the size of and device upon all the official seals of the state.

He was the author of two argumentative reports, one maintaining the state’s power to tax United States bonds and the other supporting a resolution requesting Congress to restrict the federal court’s admiralty jurisdiction to the navigation of the sea and the Great Lakes.

Thomas Jefferson Jenkins, born November 22, 1826, died August 1, 1872.  He was a private 1861-1863 and a major 1863-65, C.S.A.  On November 18, 1856, he married Susan L. Holderby, born in 1836 and died in 1927.  To them were born:

1. Julia Jenkins was born in 1857 and died in 1903
2. Laura P. Jenkins, born in 1859, died in 1879
3. D. J. Jenkins was sheriff of Cabell County from 1893-1896.  Married Elizabeth Leete, of Ironton, Ohio.
4. Grace Jenkins
5. George Robert Jenkins became a dentist in New York City.
6. Albert Gallatin Jenkins (named after the general)