My Genealogy Hound

August C. Leisner, proprietor of the White House, and dealer in furniture, was born in Wiehe, near Artern, in Prussia, January 1,1845, and is the son of Carl August and Caroline (Herfurth) Leisner, the former a native of Prussia, and the latter of Saxony. Carl August Leisner was killed in 1848, in the Rebellion. The widow remarried, in 1850, Leopold Leisring. They immigrated the same year to America, locating at Cincinnati, Ohio, from which city they removed a year later to a farm near Newport, Ky., their present home. August C. was reared as a farmer, receiving a common-school education, and at the age of sixteen years he was mustered into the Home Guards, of Campbell County, Ky., in which he served three months during the war. He next spent a year in Cincinnati, and then shipped as steward and cook on a steamboat in the United States service, plying the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. The boat was later placed on the St. Louis & Keokuk Packet Line, but when it was pressed into the Confederate service, sometime after, Mr. Leisner went ashore at St. Louis, and found employment in a number of hotels, among them the Olive Street Hotel, Lindell and Planter’s House, which he was obliged to leave on account of sickness. Upon recovering his health he came to Hermann with Charles E. White, who opened the White House. In 1871 he opened a restaurant at Kansas City, which in two years he turned over to a brother, and then, returning to Hermann, took charge of the White House Hotel, as manager, under Charles D. Eitzen, administrator of the estate of Gottlieb Rippstein. This hotel is the leading one of the kind at Hermann. In December, 1876, Mr. Leisner married the widow of Gottlieb Rippstein, former proprietor of the hotel, and has since had active control. Under his management it has acquired an excellent reputation. In 1884 he engaged in the furniture business, under the firm name of Begemann, Leisner & Co., and in 1885 he purchased the entire interest of the concern. In 1883 he was elected to the board of town trustees of Hermann, was re-elected in 1884-85, and served as president. In 1885-86 he was a member of the school board, and, besides, has served as director in the Savings Fund Association, Hermann Savings Bank and the Agricultural Society, and, in fact, is recognized as one of the representative citizens of the county.