Untitled From Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin, publ. 1901- Page 756-757

MRS. ANN LEADBETTER. Rarely does the biographical writer find a task more congenial than to tell the life story of one whose maternal love has reared two families of children, and who, at the advanced age of eighty-six years, enjoys the marked esteem of her community, the genuine affection of her friends and the devoted love of her children, and grandchildren. Such a one is Mrs. Ann LEADBETTER, of Montfort, who has witnessed and participated in the growth of Grant county for more than fifty years.

This venerable lady was born in Butler county, Ohio, on Jan. 20, 1814. Her father, Alexander GEORGE, was a Virginian, and her mother, whose name before marriage was Sarah LOVE, was a Kentuckian. Mrs. LEADBETTER was a young girl of thirteen when her parents removed from Ohio to Jo Daviess county, Ill., settling near Galena. Lead mining was then one of the chief industries of that section, and she well remembers all the hardships and pleasures of life among the mines in those early days. She is the eldest of a family of nine children, of whom only herself and her youngest sister, Mrs. Mary WANSEY, are yet living. The latter has her home in Marysville, Kans. Mr. GEORGE engaged in farming as well as mining, and both he and his wife died at Hanover, Jo Daviess county, the mother of the family passing away first and the father a few years later, his demise occurring about 1849.

Mrs. LEADBETTER has been twice left a widow. She was first led to the altar by Samuel MOORE, of Galena, when she was a girl of fourteen years, the marriage being solemnized in 1828. Her second marriage took place twenty years later, the bridegroom being Asaph LEADBETTER. Four children were born to the first union, and to the latter three. Mr. MOORE's children were Nancy J., Eugene J., Alexander and Susan. All these make their home with Mrs. LEADBETTER, with the exception of the youngest, Susan, who is now Mrs. PARISH. The issue of the second marriage was three daughters: Martha, the wife of Samuel GREDEN; Asaphina, Mrs. George WEAVER; and Lucretia Ann, deceased.

Shortly after her second marriage Mrs. LEADBETTER and her husband removed from Illinois to Montfort, Grant county. In 1850 he went on a prospecting tour to California, returning after an absence of two years. In 1854 he started on a second expedition to the Pacific coast, but he and his party were murdered en route. Mrs. LEADBETTER recalls, with vivid distinctness, the stirring scenes of the Black Hawk war, and the tribulations, perils and pleasures of early settlers in the great central West are as fresh in her recollection as they were thirty years ago. Such women, venerable in years and clear in intellect, ripe experience and unfaltering in hope, constitute the glory of a community, while their lives are in themselves a benediction.




This biography generously submitted by Carol Holmbeck