John P. Leedom
was born in Adams County on December 20, 1847, and received a common school education. He graduated at the Smith Business College in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1863. He then taught in the public schools. He was elected clerk of the courts in Adams Co., in '74, and re-elected in '77. He was a member of the Democratic state committee in 1879; was elected to the forty-seventh congress as a Democrat, receiving 17,375 votes to 15,663 votes for the Republican candidate. In this congress, he served on the committee on territories. He was a candidate for the forty-eighth congress, but was defeated by John W. McCormick, of Gallia County, by a vote of 15,288 to 13.037. He was elected sergeant-at-arms of the forty-eighth congress; also of the forty-ninth and fiftieth congresses. The defalcation of a trusted subordinate broke him down financially, and in health and spirits. He left Washington in October, 1890, and was never well afterwards. He had suffered much before with acute attacks of kidney trouble, and he died at Toledo, Ohio, March 18, 1895, and is interred in the Odd Fellow's cemetery at Manchester. He was married in 1869 to Ruth Hopkins, of Adams County. His children are Mrs. Eva Bundy, wife of Col. W. E. Bundy, of Cincinnati, United States attorney for the southern district of Ohio; Mrs. Effie Dugan, widow of the late Jesse Dugan, and son, Wilbur H. Leedom, now a law student at Manchester. Mr. Leedom was a man of fine appearance and pleasing address, and was popular as a public officer. He made a good impression wherever he went. Ill health and misfortune—the misfortune of trusting too much to others—cut short a most promising career.
From "History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time"- by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900