Butte County
Biographies
RAYMOND ANTHONY LEONARD
RAYMOND ANTHONY LEONARD.--How much Butte County owes for its law and order to its present district attorney, Raymond Anthony Leonard, is known to those who have followed the career of the well-known barrister who has managed, while pursuing his professional work, to give such attention to horticulture that he is today a prominent orange and olive grower. Born at St. Louis, Mo., on August 22, 1880, he was the grandson of Thomas Leonard, a native of Scotland, who migrated to America and became a farmer in New York, and the son of Thomas Leonard, Jr., who was born in New York State near the St. Lawrence River, and grew up to be a railway man in the New York Central. After that, he was in the operating department of the Wabash Railway Company, and continued railroading in Missouri and Illinois. In 1886, at Decatur, Ill., the father passed away.
Raymond’s mother was Miss Mary Gettings, a native of Watertown, N. Y., and the daughter of Anthony Gettings, who was born in Ireland, settled in New York, and entered the service of the New York Central Railroad. She is still living at Decatur, the mother of two children.
The eldest child in the family, Raymond, was brought up in Decatur from 1884, and attended the grammar and high schools there, finishing which he entered the University of Illinois and pursued a civil engineer course. In 1902, he took up field work in Idaho, and followed the same until 1908, when he returned to California to study law. Five years previously, that is in 1903, he had made his first trip to California, and in 1907 had come to this state as a civil engineer in the service of the Northern California Mining Company and Feather River Canal Company, now known as the Western Canal Company. When he took up law, Mr. Leonard studied in the Hastings College of Law at San Francisco, and two years afterward he came to the University of Southern California, from the law school of which he graduated in June, 1911, with the degree of LL. B. Immediately thereafter he was admitted to practice in the state and United States courts, and on July 1, 1911, he opened a law office at Oroville.
In the fall of 1914, Mr. Leonard was a candidate for district attorney, and out of seven aspirants for the honor at the primary he received the highest vote. As a natural result, therefore, he was elected at the November polls, and was also appointed to fill the vacancy of George F. Jones, his term of four years commencing in January, 1915.
But as has been stated, Mr. Leonard has made his mark in other fields than that of the law. He has become interested in horticulture, and owns an olive and orange grove in Thermalito, a part of which he set out himself. He also has an equity in the Olive Products Company, which constructed its new plant in 1916—the largest and finest of its kind in the world.
When Mr. Leonard married the ceremony took place in Los Angeles, and the bride was Miss Lucile Bullard, who was born near Decatur, Ill., and is now the mother of two children: Madeline and Raymond Anthony, Jr. Politically he has always been a Republican. He is secretary of the State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. In fraternal matters, Mr. Leonard has been active. He was made a Mason in Oroville Lodge, No. 103, F. & A. M.; and is a member of the Oroville Chapter, R. A. M.; Oroville Commandery, K. T.; Chico Lodge, No. 423, B. P. O. Elks, and the Moose.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 833-834, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies