Career
He had previously served with the Union Army during the American Civil War. Educated at public schools, he then spent two years at a commercial school at Fort Wayne following which he entered Wittenberg College, in Springfield, Ohio. He served during the American Civil War.
After the war, Leighty engaged in farming and general merchandising with his father until 1875, when he established the town of Saint Joe, in Indiana.
He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1896 to the Fifty-fifth Congress. Leighty later worked as a United States pension agent at Indianapolis from 1897 to 1901.
He died at Saint Joe, De Kalb County, Indiana, on October 18, 1912, and is interred in Riverview Cemetery.