According to John Leslie’s death certificate he was just short of 20 years old when he passed away due to an accidental wreck of a log train in Transylvania County, North Carolina. He was employed at Carr Lumber Company living in Pisgah Forest and was the son of Henry and Susan Leslie.
Information about the source of John Leslie’s memorial marker: One enduring physical legacy of the Woodmen of the World is distinctive headstone in the shape of a tree stump. This was an early benefit of Woodmen of the World membership. This program was abandoned in the late 1920s as it was too costly. Typically the headstones would include a depiction of the WOW relics and symbols of the organization. The organization was founded in 1890 by Cullen Root in Omaha, Nebraska. Root had founded Modern Woodmen of America in Lyons, Iowa, in 1883, after hearing a sermon about “pioneer woodsmen clearing away the forest to provide for their families”. After internal dissension within the MWA, Root was ejected from the organization that he had founded. When moving to Omaha, Root decided to start again with a new group he originally called the Modern Woodmen of the World. He soon dropped the “Modern”, and the organization became simply, “Woodmen of the World”.
