Franklin Leslie - Later Years

Later Years

Sheriff John Slaughter delivered him to the Yuma Territorial Prison on January 9, 1890, where he became convict number 632. The Mohave Miner, on January 18, 1890, reported "The eleven convicts who were brought here from Tombstone yesterday, arrived in an intoxicated condition. One of the number, a life prisoner, Frank Leslie, was so drunk that he could scarcely walk." Leslie became a model prisoner and volunteered to serve in the prison hospital. During several epidemics, he risked exposing himself and worked hard caring for fellow inmates. Dr. P.G. Cotter, the physician in charge, wrote that Leslie "was a most humane and self-sacrificing attendant".

After serving 8 years, Governor Franklin pardoned Leslie for good behavior, and Leslie was released from the Yuma Territorial Prison on November 7, 1896. He relocated to California and settled in Stockton, California where he married Mrs. Belle Stowell on December 1, 1896. She had been living in San Francisco when he was imprisoned and "read the narrative of the scout's adventures and, it is said, fell in love with him." They corresponded while Leslie was in prison and she arrived from Warren County, Illinois for the marriage. They allegedly traveled to China on their honeymoon. Leslie later traveled to Mexico and became a field assistant to a Professor Dumell on a geological survey for coal deposits. The San Francisco Call, on November 26, 1902, reported, "Frank Leslie was accidentally shot through the right knee and on the right side of the head by the discharge of his own revolver yesterday morning, while at a saloon at Eddy and Market streets. Leslie, who carries a self-acting revolver, was entering a side room, when the weapon slipped from his pocket and striking on the asphalt floor was exploded, sending the ball through the outside of his right knee. The bullet passed so close to his head that it clipped off a portion of his right ear and cut a furrow along his scalp." After trying his hand at prospecting in the Alaskan gold fields, Leslie moved to Oakland, California in 1913 where he worked at a pool hall. On November 6, 1913, at Napa, he married Elnora Cast although it is unclear whether he was legally divorced from his other wife Belle (Stowell) Leslie.