Joshua A. Leach

Joshua A. Leach, founder of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen Joshua A. Leach (May 8, 1843 – June 28, 1919) was an American locomotive worker and trade union functionary. He is best remembered as the founder of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (B of LF) in 1873 and head of that organization from 1873 to 1876.

Traveling to Terre Haute, Indiana, on behalf of the firemen's order in February 1875, Leach inspired the 19-year-old Eugene V. Debs to become active in the organization, leading to his election as Secretary-Treasurer in 1880 and starting him on a career as a trade union organizer.

Biography Early years

Joshua A. Leach was born in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland, on May 8, 1843. He emigrated with his parents to the United States when he was a three-month-old infant, with the family settling in Port Jervis, New York. He grew up in that small town in southern New York state. The job was perilous with insurance against death or dismemberment frequently difficult or impossible to obtain for poorly paid railway workers, and Leach began to think about the establishment of a fraternal benefit society for the firemen patterned on the already established Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (B of LE).

In December 1873, Leach got together with 11 other employees of the Erie Railroad to establish a new fraternal-benefit society, which they named the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (B of LF).

In October 1877, Leach relocated from Port Jervis to Nebraska City, Nebraska, where he lived on a farm. Leach went to work for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, He was hired by the International Correspondence School for a position and worked briefly as a traveling instructor aboard an educational railway car. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Engineers which he founded made a gift to him of a home in Sedalia, Missouri, to which he retired sometime during the middle-1910s. He would never leave the city of Denver alive.

At 8:15 pm on June 28 Leach suffered a massive heart attack, which proved fatal. He was 76 years old at the time of his death.

Leach's body was subsequently transported for burial to his hometown of Sedalia, Missouri.

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