Kentucky. Governor (1871-1875 : Leslie)

Preston H. Leslie succeeded to the office of governor of Kentucky in February 1871, upon the resignation of John W. Stevenson. He served the remaining six months of that term, and was then elected to a full term in his own right.

Leslie was born in 1819 in what was then Wayne County, Kentucky. He received little formal education until he began his studies for the bar, to which he was admitted in 1840. Leslie was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives as a Whig in 1844, and to the state Senate in 1850. With the decline of the Whig party, Leslie became a Democrat.

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