Leiter, Benjamin F.

Born: 1813-10-13 Leitersburg, Maryland

Died: 1866-06-17 Canton, Ohio

Flourished: 1834 to 1866 Stark County, Ohio

Benjamin F. Leiter, attorney and public official, received a common school education in his native Maryland and taught school there between 1830 and 1834. In the latter year, he moved to Ohio where lived with an uncle near Canton. Leiter worked in his uncle’s mills, read law, and continued to teach school. He was elected a justice of the peace in 1839 and was reelected annually for ten years. In 1842 Leiter qualified at the bar and began practicing law in Canton. He was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1848 and 1849, serving as speaker in the latter year. Politically, Leiter was initially a Democrat but left the party over his opposition to the Kansas Nebraska Act. Fellow opponents of the Kansas Nebraska Act elected Leiter to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Fusion Know Nothing candidate in 1854, and he was reelected to a second and final term two years later as a Republican. On the advent of the Civil War, Leiter supported union. He married Catharine Burger in 1836 and was survived by three children.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1385; John H. Lehman, ed., A Standard History of Stark County, Ohio (Chicago and New York: Lewis, [1916?]), 1:151, 245-46, 259, 339; Herbert C. Bell, History of Leitersburg District, Washington County, Md. (Leitersburg, MD: Herbert C. Bell, 1898), 187-88; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Stark County, OH, 517; Joseph P. Smith, ed., History of the Republican Party in Ohio (Chicago: Lewis, 1898), 1:15-16, 19, 21, 29, 66; Cleveland Weekly Plain Dealer (OH), 12 July 1854, 5:1; 13 September 1854, 2:2; The Weekly Portage Sentinel (Ravenna, OH), 25 October 1854, 2:3; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 2, Canton, Stark County, OH, 52; Stark County Democrat (Canton, OH), 20 June 1866, 3:2; Stark County Republican (Canton, OH), 21 June 1866, 3:5.