LEONARD S. WEAST. For over forty years this gentleman has been an honored resident of Marion County, Arkansas He was born in Guilford County, N. C., October 26, 1845, a son of Adam and Sophia (Fortune) Weast, who were born and reared in North Carolina and Virginia, respectively. The latter went with her parents to North Carolina, and there she met married Mr. Weast, with whom she moved to Arkansas in 1850, entering land where Yellville is now situated, purchasing also an eighty-acre tract in the valley of Crooked Creek, on which he built a log house which is still standing, being on the west end of Main Street, Yellville. He brought with him to this State nine slaves, and being a man of good business judgment he succeeded in accumulating a valuable property, a considerable portion of which was lost during the war. He was a Democrat, a public-spirited citizen and a member of the Baptist Church. He died during the latter part of the war, in which great struggle five of his sons participated, being in the Confederate service. His wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and died in May, 1890, at the age of eighty-nine years, having borne him eleven children: Nelson, who died in North Carolina some years ago; Brice, who died in Yellville about nine years ago, was a farmer and miller by occupation; James W., who died in 1889, was a merchant of Lawrence County, Arkansas; George W. is a merchant of Newport, Arkansas; John J. is a farmer in the Chickasaw Nation; Benjamin L. is at present a resident of Texas, but still has his home in Yellville; Columbus M. is in Oklahoma Territory; Leonard S.; Sarah E. is the widow of F. Wood, and is living in Indian Territory with her children; Mary E. is the wife of N. Wood, of this county, and Martha is the wife of John Wood, of this county.
Leonard S. Weast has resided in this county ever since he was five years old, and has always followed the occupations of farming and stockraising. Upon reaching manhood he started out to do for himself, and was soon after married to Mrs. J. W. Weast, a daughter of a Mr. Williams, how died during the war, and the widow of Mr. Weast’s brother. They have resided on their present farm since 187O. which place consists of acres of fine land, a portion of which is within the corporate limits of Yellville. Mr. Weast is an active Democrat, and is one of the useful citizens of the section in which he lives, taking an active interest in everything tending to benefit it. By her first husband Mrs. Weast became the mother of one child, Emma C., wife of Dr. Bryant, of Coal Hill, by whom she had two children: Maud and Cecil; and by her present husband she has had four children: Essie F., wife of Norman L. Burnett, of Texas; Virgil. Lucian and Cass.