Son of Johann and Josephine (Zimmerscheidt) Leyendecker
Confederate veteran

J. F. Leyendecker, of Frelsburg, Colorado County, died on August 8. In less than two months he would have been 70 years old. He was born in Neuhausel, Germany, and emigrated to this country with his father and family in 1843 and has resided in one place there sixty five years. He was educated at old Independence University, in Washington county, under Dr. Baylor, and married Miss Frances Stanger, and they raised a family of six boys and six girls, four of whom are yet living. He served as justice of the peace and county commissioner for eighteen years, also as county tax collector, and was a member of the Thirteenth legislature in 1873. During the war he was a member of the Seventeenth Texas volunteers and saw hard times. In all my life I never heard one speak of him except to praise. He loved horticulture intensely and would have been widely known if he had written for the press but half of his experiments and what he observed. He was probably the first one in the state to grow fruit of Japan persimmons, and the Le Conte pears. He seemed always first in having new fruits bear, but he was so modest and retiring in his nature that one had to ask him to learn these things. He was a member of our State Nut Growers's association and was present a year ago when the question came up about budding pecans on hickory, but he exhibited the same variety of nuts in two lots --one lot grown from a bud on pecan, and the other on a hickory. In his quiet way he has kept up a good nursery for about thirty five years, and was one of the first in the state to become proficient in budding pecans. The nursery will be continued by his daughter, Miss Carrie, and others of the family. [Interment was in the Zimmerscheidt/ Leyendecker Cemetery]

Weimar Mercury, Oct. 2, 1908.

LEYENDECKER, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1838–1908). Johann Friedrich Leyendecker, also known as John F. and Fritz, Confederate officer, county official, horticulturalist, and state representative, was born in Neuausel, Germany, in 1838, the son of Johann and Margaret (Zimmerscheidt) Leyendecker. The Leyendecker family immigrated to the United States in 1843, arriving in New York before embarking by boat for Texas. The family landed at Galveston, Nueces County, and soon joined relatives in Colorado County. Leyendecker was raised in the area and married Frances Stanger. This couple had six sons and six daughters. He attended Baylor University at Independence and showed a strong interest in agricultural innovation. At the outbreak of the Civil War Leyendecker sided with the German Unionists but served with the Confederacy, rising to the rank of second lieutenant in the Seventeenth Texas Infantry Regiment.

After the war Leyendecker became involved in the public affairs of Colorado County. Now with Democratic or moderate Republican tendencies, Leyendecker won election as county tax assessor in August 1868, as county commissioner in 1870, and as representative for District Twenty-five—comprised of Colorado and Lavaca counties—to the Thirteenth Texas Legislature in 1872. In the later 1870s and early 1880s Leyendecker also served as a justice of the peace. During this time Leyendecker resumed his interest in agriculture. He owned and operated a nursery and conducted ongoing experiments in pecan and pear breeding. In 1904 he received a bronze medal for his LeConte, Smith, and Kiefer pears, at the Louisiana Purchase Expo. Leyendecker was a member of both the South Texas Horticultural Society and the Texas State Horticultural Society. He won election as president of the former society in 1890 and served as chairman of the Committee on Entomology for the latter society in 1892. During the late 1890s and early 1900s he was president of the Colorado County Farmers' Unionqv. Leyendecker died in 1908. ---Aragorn Storm Miller