According to Mary Ann Leslie in The Henderson County Heritage Book, Volume 1, “The Henry Leslie Generation. My father Henry Leslie was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1866. He came to America at the age of six in 1872, along with his father Henry Leslie, Sr., his mother, Jean Anderson Leslie, his uncle, Sam Leslie, and younger brother, James. They settled in Parkersburg, West Virginia, where the two brothers bought a coal mine and planned to operate it.
Henry went to check the mine and became the victim of an accident. The shaft fell in and when rescued he was pronounced dead.
After several years of widowhood, Jean returned to Scotland with her two young sons. She met and later married John Finlay, a widower with four sons. To their union was added four sons and one daughter.
News of America seemed inviting to John and they with their families, soon embarked on an adverturesome journey to America. With the money they had, they bought approximately one thousand acres of land, a part of which is now the Finlay Cove area. On this land they planned to raise sheep, but found sheep did not thrive well in this area and soon gave up the idea. Later John established a grist mill on what is now Finlay Creek, where he and the boys worked for a number of years. Later Henry went to Greenville, South Carolina, to work in a store belonging to a relative. Here he worked during the day and was tutored during the evenings.
John’s step-father, John Finlay, became ill and Henry returned home to help care for him. At the age of nineteen, henry met, fell in love and married Susan Summey, the daughter of John Summey, a Civil War veteran, and Narcissus Shepherd Summey. Narcissus was a daughter of Abner Shepherd, a close relative of the Shepherds who now reside in Hendersonville.
Susan ran away and married Henry without parental consent. At first, Grandpa John was bitter and refused to let them return home, but grandmother being a Shepherd, had ideas of her own. On Saturday, she cooked a sumptuous meal and early on Sunday morning, she ordered grandfather John to hitch up the horses and wagon and go for Susan and Henry. This he did and they arrived home to a bountiful wedding meal, as well as a cordial reception from the family and grandfather jokingly called Henry his “foreigner Scotsman.” They later rented a small cabin and moved to Crab Creek where they lived with their first two children, Bessie and Jane, were born. They decided to return home, build a house and establish roots for themselves.
Daddy Henry swapped a shotgun with his brother Andrew for an acre of land. On this they built a long cabin where they lived until the last of their eight children were born. On the extra land, they built a larger and better home that would meet the needs of a larger family. Here the family lived until the house burned in 1931, just before Henry’s death.
Henry was Presbyterian by faith, but later joined the Baptist Church with his family and there became a good worker. He worked in the Pleasant Hill Church as Sunday School Superintendent, deacon, and teacher, and at the same time helped organize the Valley Hill Sunday School which first functioned in the one room Ficker Schoolhouse. Later he moved his and his familys membership to Jones Gap, a newly organized church, coming from the Old Mount Crystal Church. Here he worked hard and served well. He was affectionately know among his friends as “Uncle Henry.”
For many years he worked as a farmer as well as a day laborer, and sought every opportunity to give his children a better life than he had. I was frequently sent to the field to take food and water to him, and he would remove his hat before eating and bless the food before partaking.
Previous to World War I, he worked as a lumber supervisor in the Pisgah Mountain area for the Carr Lumber Company. For a number of years there were no churches, schools and religious gatherings, but he organized a Sunday School and mid-weekly prayer meetings with his workers and their families. He served on the Mt. Hebron School Board for a number of years and was quick to recognize changes for better schools. He realized that Valley Hill School offered greater opportunities to better meet our needs and transferred our family into that school district. I can say of my father that he believed in change for the betterment of his home, his church and his community, and sought to help bring it about.
His wife Susan became ill in 1932 and passed away, after which father’s health began to fail and in 1932 he too passed away.
Our parents did not leave us a great material heritage, but they taught us principles and ideals that stand out in our lives. For their epitaph I would choose this Latin one: Dum Tacet, Clamat – “He speaks though he be silent.”
The names of the children of the Leslie Family are Bessie, Jane, Albert, Annie, Julia, John, George and Mary Ann.”
