Alexander Leandreaux Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1737-1738 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

	This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit 
	organizations for their private use. 

	Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval 
	system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other 
	means requires the written approval of the file's author.


	ALEXANDER LEANDREAUX, one of the successful stock growers of 
Edmunds county, comes of French lineage and is a native of the province 
of Quebec, Canada, his birthplace having been sixty miles east of the 
city of Montreal, where the family was early established. He was born in 
November, 1835, and will have thus passed the psalmist's span of three 
score years and ten by the time this history is issued from the press. 
but he is an excellent type of the sturdy pioneer and in appearance and 
actions gives slight indications of the years which rest so gently on 
his head. His parents passed the closing years of their lives in the 
state of Massachusetts. In 1852, when about seventeen years of age, Mr. 
Leandreaux left his native province and made his way to the Lake 
Superior region, where he was engaged in teaming for the ensuing three 
years. In the autumn of 1855 he went to the city of New York and there 
embarked for California, making the trip by way of the isthmus of Panama 
and arriving in due course of time in San Francisco. He went to the gold 
fields and devoted his attention to placer mining there for three years, 
being successful during the major portion of the time, as it evident 
when we revert to the fact that he cleared sixteen thousand dollars in 
thirty days. In 1858 he joined the stampede to the newly discovered gold 
fields of the Frazer river, where, within one year, he lost nearly all 
he had previously accumulated. He then proceeded to Colville, 
Washington, at the head of the Columbia river, where he remained two 
years, being fairly successful in his operations. He then went to 
Florence City, Idaho, three hundred miles distant, remaining six months 
and finding his success notable for its absence. He then returned to 
Colville and started in the business of transporting supplies by means 
of pack trains of mules, continuing this enterprise four years and 
making the same profitable. Thereafter he was for three years in 
Virginia City, Montana, where gold was first discovered in that state, 
and he then joined in the unsuccessful stampede to the Blackfoot 
district, and thence, the same fall, went to the Deer Lodge valley and 
made his way down the Missouri river on a steamer called the "Zephyr," 
to Fort Rice. In the following spring he, with others, was ordered to 
leave, by reason of the treaty stipulations made with the Indians, the 
major in command of the post having about this time taken measures to 
also expel Father Smith, one of the missionary priests of the Catholic 
church. He fired his gun at the good father, and one of the Indians 
stepped forth and reproved the major, telling him he was a fool and 
trying to kill God Almighty. Mr. Leandreaux went next to Fort Sully, 
where he worked about five months for the post traders, Duff & Peck, 
assisting in the erection of their store. He then secured permission and 
established a wood yard on the river, and continued to operate the same 
until the railroad reached Pierre, having made the business a profitable 
one. He then engaged in the live stock business, going to Minnesota for 
stock and pasturing the same on the range about Fort Pierre. He next 
located on the Cheyenne river, where he continued in the same line of 
enterprise for three years, utilizing the Bad river range for the 
ensuing two years, and then moving his stock to the Moreau river valley, 
where he has since remained, running about five hundred head of cattle, 
principally of the Hereford breed, while he also has an average of one 
hundred horses, both draft and light driving. He is the owner of a fine 
modern residence in Evarts, and the family occupy the same during a 
portion of each year. Mr. Leandreaux has been twice married, his first 
wife having been a Sioux woman, and after her death he married a half-
breed French and Sioux woman. He has one son and eight daughters.