Short Biography of William H. Leese

WILLIAM LEESE, senior member of the firm of Leese & Lewis, attorneys at law at Seward, came to Nebraska in May, 1868, and first located in Otoe County, where he took up a homestead on Section 10, Palmyra Precinct, remaining on his claim until 1870, at that time going to Iowa, but after staying there a short time he returned to Nebraska and located in Lincoln, where he lived until 1872, when he moved to Seward, and finished his law studies and was admitted to the bar before Judge Lake, of Seward, in 1874, and has since practiced his profession at that place. The subject of this sketch was born in Athens County, Tenn., April 30, 1840, and was married in Otoe County, Neb., in 1869, to Miss Miranda L. Wilson, daughter of Jefferson and Minerva Wilson, who settled in Nebraska in 1862. Mr. L. enlisted in the great rebellion in 1861, at Cincinnati, Ohio, in the Second United States Horse Artillery, and served until the close of the war, and was in all of the engagements on the Potomac. After coming from the war, he went to Parkersburg, W. Va., and ran a ferry from that place to Belpre. He is a member of the A. F. & A. M., being a charter member of Oliver Lodge, No. 38. Mr. L., of this firm, is a graduate of the Ann Arbor Law School, in 1873, and came to Nebraska in the same year and opened his first office at Seward, where he has since practiced.

Source: "History of the State of Nebraska" ⁶