Robert Leonard (bef. 1730 – 1780): Documenting His French and Indian War Service in Maryland

Or, Subtitled: “I Robert Lineard now Soldier in Captain Dagurthey’s Company”

In this posting, I want to take a closer look at the documented history of Robert Leonard’s military service in Frederick County, Maryland, in the 1750s. We have a document placing him with Captain John Dagworthy at Fort Cumberland by February 1755, and after the construction of Fort Frederick in 1756-7, documents showing him serving there with Captain Alexander Beall, Dagworthy’s commander at that fort, up to November 1758. The document which tells us that Robert was serving under Dagworthy in February 1755 is an 8 February 1755 indenture that Robert made with a Frederick County farmer to whom he apprenticed his son William.[1] This indenture document gives the farmer’s name variously as Robert Byard, William Byard, or Robert Bowie. It states that Robert Leonard was a “Soldier in Captain Dagurthey’s Company” when he indentured his son on 8 February 1755.

The Indenture Document

Robert Leonard’s February 1755 indenture of his son William reads as follows:

At the Request of Robert Byard Bowie the following Indenture was Recorded February the Twenty Second Day In the Year of our Lord Seventeen hundred and Fifty five To wit This Indenture made the 8th day of February In the Twenty Eighth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord the King and in the Year of our Lord 1755 five Witneſseth that I Robert Lineard now Soldier in Captain Dagurthey’s Company hath of his own free and Voluntary Will placed and Bound his son Wm. Lineard unto Robert Byard of Frederick County Farmer and with him as an apprentice to Dwell Continue and Serve him from the Day of the Date hereof Unto the full end and Term of Fourteen Years & Seven Months from thence next Ensuing and fully to be Compleat & ended. During all which time of Fourteen Years & Seven Months and the said Wm. Byard his to give the Said Apprentice Meat Drink Cloath Washing & Lodging and Six Years After the date hereof to keep the Said Apprentice Two full Years Constantly at Schoole and at the End of his servitude to Give him his freedoms According to the Custom of the Country In Witneſs Whereof We have hereunto set our hands & Seals the day and Year Above Written

Wm. Lineard (his mark)

Robt. Byard (his mark)

Signed Sealed & Delivered in the presence of us

William Miller Benjamin Tomlinson

Note the following:

• Robert Leonard states that he was a soldier serving under Captain “Dagurthey” — i.e., under John Dagworthy.

• We know that Dagworthy was at Fort Cumberland in Frederick County in 1755, so this indenture document places Robert Leonard as a soldier at that fort. His military career had already begun by February 1755.

• The indenture states that William Lineard was Robert Lineard’s son. It does not give William’s age. As I’ve stated previously, it was not unheard of in this time and place for parents to apprentice out a child as young as six or seven years of age. The indenture document specifies that Robert was indenturing his son William for fourteen years and seven months. When minors were indentured in Maryland at this period, the limit of indenture was usually their 21st birthday. If the indenture period is an indicator of William’s age at the time Robert indentured him, he would have been six years and five months old in February 1755, and therefore born in September 1748.

• The indenture document does not state why Robert was indenturing this son to Robert or William Byard/Bowie. It states that six years after February 1755, Byard/Bowie was to provide two years of schooling for William Leonard.

• Note the discrepancies with the name of the Frederick County farmer to whom William Leonard is apprenticed: the surname Byard is inked out at the start of the document and Bowie written in its place. At one point the indenture document gives Byard’s Christian name as William. Otherwise, it appears as Robert. The signature of Robt. Byard again seems to have the surname itself inked out.

• I have not been able to find a Robert Byard or Bayard or a Robert Bowie in Frederick County records at this time. It’s possible that Benjamin Tomlinson, who was one of the two witnesses, is connected to a Tomlinson family that lived on Will’s Creek near Fort Cumberland from an early date.[2]

John Dagworthy and Fort Cumberland

John Dagworthy was born 30 March 1721 at Trenton, New Jersey, the son of an older John Dagworthy and Sarah Ely. He died 1 May 1784 in Sussex County, Delaware. On 20 October 1774, he married Martha, daughter of Thomas Cadwallader and Hannah Lambert and sister of General John Cadwallader.[3] In 1746, when New Jersey raised a regiment of five hundred men for King George’s War, the colony’s Council appointed Dagworthy captain of one of the companies in this regiment and his company went to Albany, New York, in September 1746 along with Pennsylvania troops to participate in an expedition against Canada that never actually took place.[4]

Dagworthy raised his own company for this expedition, and then voyaged to England to seek the Crown’s support for the military venture and was given a royal commission. After his return to the colonies with this commission, in September 1753 he was stationed at Fort Cumberland in command of two companies of rangers organized to defend and protect the frontier settlements of western Maryland. On 2 September 1754, Maryland governor Horatio Sharpe wrote Lord Baltimore stating that he had made provision to defend the colony against the French and Indians, and saying,[5]

I have given the command thereof to one Capt. Dagworthy, a gentleman born in the Jerseys, who commanded a company raised in that province for the Canada Expedition, since the miscarriage of which he has resided in this province upon an estate which he purchased in Worcester County.

In another letter to Baltimore, Sharpe praised Dagworthy and “especially his ability during the past summer to exist with his command without food,” adding that “he could no doubt be able to pass through the winter without shelter.”[6]

As Friends of Fort Frederick note,[7]

As early as August 1754 we know that the colony would “cloath” “the companies of men to be raised in this province.” Sharpe related that right after receiving funds to raise troops he “proceeded to form a company cloath & accoutre them….” In June 1755 Sharpe reports that Dagworthy’s company received 57 suits of clothes. Based on this we can safely say that these were uniforms.

In September 1754, fifty to sixty men were raised for Captain Dagworthy’s company and marched to Fort Mount Pleasant (later Fort Cumberland), and a fort was built on Wills Creek in what was then Frederick but is now Allegany County in September and October.[8] On 26 September 1754, the Maryland Gazette reported,[9]

Laſt Monday Morning, a Part of the Soldiers raiſed in this Province to go againſt the French on the Ohio, marched out of Town, for Frederick County, under Command of Lieutenant John Forty; and we hear the Remainder will march the Beginning of next Week.

On 3 October 1754, the Maryland Gazette announced that a second party of Dagworthy’s soldiers had marched from Annapolis under command of Lieutenant John Bacon to join the other soldiers in Frederick County.[10]

As Reuben Pownall Ely notes, it was while Dagworthy was in command of Fort Cumberland that his long dispute with George Washington, which I discussed in a previous posting, began. Washington had been commissioned a colonel of colonial troops and commander-in-chief of Virginia forces. Dagworthy was a captain, but held a royal commission and considered himself Washington’s superior as a result. As Jared Sparke states,[11]

At Fort Cumberland was a Captain Dagworthy, commissioned by Governor Sharpe, who had under him a small company of Maryland troops. This person had held a royal commission in the last war, upon which he now plumed himself, refusing obedience to any provincial officer, however high in rank. Hence, whenever Colonel Washington was at Fort Cumberland, the Maryland captain would pay no regard to his orders.

In an article providing a roster of Maryland troops in the French and Indian War, Maryland Historical Magazine adds (with no author’s name stated) that, though Fort Cumberland was a royal fort, it had been built by Virginians on Maryland soil, and this historical background also likely played into the pique between Dagworthy and Washington.[12] As Patrick H. Stakem notes, when Dagworthy refused to take orders from Washington at Fort Cumberland, Washington appealed to Virginia governor Dinwiddie, who refused to intervene, stating that Fort Cumberland was in Maryland and outside his jurisdiction.[13]

On 8 December 1754, it was reported that Dagworthy had forty-seven men garrisoned at Fort Cumberland prior to Braddock’s disastrous expedition in the summer of the following year that precipitated the decision of the Maryland Assembly to see Fort Frederick constructed.[14] Note that with this December 1754 date, we’re arrived chronologically right on the eve of February 1755 when Robert Leonard indentured his son William in Frederick County, stating that he was a soldier under Captain Dagworthy. Since Fort Frederick had not yet been constructed in 1755, that document strongly suggests that Robert was stationed at Fort Cumberland when he indentured son William.

I have found no documents indicating where Robert Leonard was prior to February 1755. I’m inclined to suspect that his service with Dagworthy began prior to that date. If so, it’s possible he was among Maryland soldiers raised in the fall of 1754 to serve with Dagworthy in guarding the frontier. Or did he come to Maryland from New Jersey with Dagworthy prior to 1754? When New Jersey raised its regiments in 1746 for the expedition to Canada, with Dagworthy commanding one of the companies of volunteers, another company was raised under the command of Captain Henry Leonard.[15] A notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette on 11 September 1746 states that five companies of 100 men had been raised in New Jersey for an expedition to Canada and had embarked for Albany.[16] The five captains of these companies are named by surnames: they include Dagworthy and Leonard.

Captain Henry Leonard was born in 1715, probably in Shrewsbury township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, son of Henry Leonard and Sarah Morford. Captain Henry’s father Henry was born about 1668 in Massachusetts and died after 17 April 1739 in Shrewsbury township.[17] The Leonard family of Monmouth County, New Jersey, included a number of military men in its first generations in New Jersey, including two first cousins of Captain Henry who were Loyalists during the Revolution, brothers John and Thomas Leonard, both of whom ended up in Nova Scotia.[18]

I have no information showing that Robert Leonard, serving with Dagworthy at Fort Cumberland by February 1755, is in any way connected to the Henry Leonard who served alongside Dagworthy in King George’s War in 1746. It may well be coincidental that two military men with the Leonard surname had ties to Dagworthy in the period 1746-1755. Still, for anyone trying to find records of Robert Leonard prior to February 1755, I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Dagworthy had at least one connection to the Leonard family of Monmouth County, New Jersey, in the 1740s.

Fort Frederick

As I’ve just indicated, when General Edward Braddock’s campaign to take Fort Duquesne from the French failed disastrously in the summer of 1755, with Braddock being killed in battle along with many of his troops, the Maryland legislature responded by making plans to build another fort in Frederick County, a fort to be named Fort Frederick. The Maryland troops serving with Braddock included Dagworthy’s soldiers. As the previously cited anonymous article in Maryland Historical Magazine providing a roster of Maryland troops in the French and Indian War states,[19]

Braddock’s defeat aroused the Assembly to action, and at the February session of 1756, after much bickering, the sum of £40,000 was voted for His Majesty’s service. At subsequent sessions the Assembly declined to do more than provide for the support of 300 militia, who could not be sent beyond Fort Frederick nor used as a fixed garrison for Fort Cumberland. Captain Dagworthy was given the command of the Maryland troops sent to the frontiers of Frederick County in 1754, and in 1756 took part in the construction of Fort Frederick.

When the new fort was built, Dagworthy was placed in command with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, with five hundred men in his battalion.[20]

On 11 March 1756, the Maryland Gazette reported,[21]

In a Letter from Fort Cumberland, dated the Fifteenth Inſtant, there is Advice, that two conſiderable Bodies of French Indians have been lately down there, and had picked up ſeveral of the Men belonging to the Fort; but that the Commanding Officer there had detached Parties immediately in Purſuit of them, which obliged them to retreat precipitately, and thereby prevented their getting among the Inhabitants.

In May 1756, the Maryland Assembly passed a supply bill of $40,000 for King’s service and defense of the frontier, with $11,000 designated for construction of a strong fortification. In addition, two companies of Maryland troops, commanded by Captains John Dagworthy and Alexander Beall, were raised, with each company to contain 100 men. Construction of the new fort eighteen miles west of Hagerstown began in June 1756.[22] 

Whereas Fort Cumberland had been hastily hobbled together with insubstantial materials, the new fort near Hagerstown was built to last and to provide strong protection against adversaries:[23]

The stone fort, named in honor of Maryland’s Lord Proprietor, Frederick Calvert, Sixth Lord Baltimore, was erected by Governor Horatio Sharpe in 1756 to protect English settlers from the French and their Indian allies. Fort Frederick was unique because of its large size and strong stone wall. Most other forts of the period were built of wood and earth. The fort served as an important supply base for English campaigns…. Fort Frederick saw service again during the American Revolution as a prison for Hessian (German) and British soldiers.

As construction of Fort Frederick was being completed, the Maryland Assembly met from 6 April through 9 May 1757 to pass an act entitled “An Act for his Majesty’s Service, and the more immediate Defence and Protection of the Frontier Inhabitants of this Province”:[24]

It appears, that a Plan has been formed for the better Defence of his Majesty’s Dominions in North-America, and for Annoying his Majesty’s Enemies in these Parts; by which it is proposed, that this Province should raise and support Five Hundred Men, to act in Conjunction with his Majesty’s Regular Forces, in the Defence and for the Security of this Province….

The act goes on to allocate funding for the fort and its troops, stating that funding

[S]hall be applied to the Raising, Cloathing, Paying, Subsisting, and Defraying all Charges and Expences attending the Supporting Five Hundred Men, including Five Captains, Ten Lieutenants, Five Ensigns, Twenty Serjeants, Twenty Corporals, and Five Drummers, to act in Conjunction with his Majesty’s Regular Forces, and under the Command of his Majesty’s General, or the Officer properly authorized for his Majesty’s Service, and the more immediate Protection and Security of this Province.

The act then specified that among those officers whose troops were included in these provisions were Dagworthy and Alexander Beall:

Provided always, and be it further Enacted, That all the Men, now under the Command of Captain Dagworthy, Captain Alexander Beall, and Captain Joshua Beall, which, by the Terms or Conditions of their Enlistment, were obliged to continue in Service longer than the Tenth Day of April, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty-seven, and all the Officers of their respective Companies, shall be held and deemed as a Part of the aforesaid Five Hundred Men, and shall be paid and subsisted according to the Directions of this Act from the said Tenth Day of April.”

Those holding the rank of sergeant, like Robert Leonard, were to receive a shilling and sixpence daily for their service: “To every Serjeant, One Shilling and Six Pence per Day.”

The duties of these troops, the act maintains, were not only to maintain and garrison the fort, but to engage in ranging to assure the safety of inhabitants of the frontier, “with Orders to Range as near the Settlement of the Inhabitants as the Nature of that Service shall require.” Alexander Beall’s troops in particular played a key role in acting as rangers to secure the western parts of Maryland: in 1756, the Maryland Assembly paid Beall “for the support of the ranging parties on the Western Frontier” and to “raise more men for the defense of the frontier regions of Maryland.”[25]

From the time Fort Frederick was built, a steady stream of records shows Robert Leonard serving there as a sergeant under Dagworthy and Beall. Henry C. Peden notes that Robert was stationed at the fort by August 1757.[26] A set of muster rolls with an indexed ledger found in the Calvert Papers, dated 1762, tracks the troops at the fort from 9 October 1757, though it appears some of the men appearing in these muster rolls had been with Dagworthy as early as 1754.[27] Commenting on these muster rolls, the previously cited Maryland Historical Magazine says,[28]

The records from which this roster [of Maryland troops in the French and Indian War, 1757-9] is compiled, consist of 53 muster rolls and an indexed ledger, which is dated 1762. They show service from October 9th, 1757, up to which time the troops had been paid in one of the ways mentioned above; but it is probable that some of the men had been with Captain Dagworthy as early as 1754. These records were most carefully kept in order to secure payment for the men in spite of the Assembly’s refusal to provide for them and final settlement appears to have been made March 16th, 1763. There are twelve rolls each for the companies of Captains John Dagworthy, Alexander Beall, Joshua Beall, Francis Ware, and seven for that of Richard Pearis.

The muster rolls for Alexander Beall’s company show the following:[29]

LEONARD, ROBERT. Sgt. Capt. A. Beall’s co. O. 9, 1757 to F. 16, 1758.

Discharged

According to Murtie J. Clark, the roster of Beall’s company shows Robert Leonard discharged on 8 November 1758.[30]

In addition to this set of records, Frederick County Land Record books in this period of time repeatedly show Sergeant Robert Leonard of Alexander Beall’s company witnessing the discharge of soldiers from Beall’s company:

• On 10 February 1757, Sergeant Robert Leonard and George Barrance witnessed the discharge of John Harris from Beall’s unit.[31]

• On 18 June 1757, Leonard and Barrance witnessed the discharge of William Smith from Beall’s company.[32]

• On 25 and 28 July, the same two men witnessed the discharge of Joseph Hughes and Adam Coonce from the same unit.[33]

• From 4-10 August 1757, several men of the unit recorded their discharges before Leonard and Barrance.[34]

• On 22 November 1758, Leonard and Barrance witnessed the discharge of William Kimbol from Beall’s company.[35]

• On 22 March 1759, Robert Leonard witnessed the discharge of Henry Petner from Beall’s unit.[36]

According to Henry Peden, a payment to Robert Leonard dated 7 March 1763 appears on Colonel Dagworthy’s account book.[37] This payment postdates his period of service in the British 35th Regiment of Foot from some point prior to 13 September 1759, when the battle of the Plains of Abraham took place, to 24 July 1762, when he was discharged from this military unit. It does not necessarily mean, I think, that Robert had continued serving under Dagworthy up to March 1763, only that he received a payment for some reason from Dagworthy on that date, and must have returned to Maryland after his discharge in Havana in July 1762 from the 35th.

During the years in which Robert Leonard served in Alexander Beall’s company under Dagworthy’s command at Fort Frederick, soldiers garrisoned at the fort were among those suffering severe defeat with Major James Grant in the battle of Fort Duquesne on 14 September 1758; the Fort Frederick troops then lost a number of men at the battle of Fort Ligonier on 12 October 1758; and troops from Fort Frederick were present at the occupation of Fort Duquesne on 25 November 1758.[38] It seems to me very likely that Robert Leonard took part in some or perhaps all of these military actions.

Some Notes about Alexander Beall

Robert Leonard’s commanding officer at Fort Frederick, Captain Alexander Beall, was born about 1712 in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and died about May 1759 in Frederick County. His father William Beall (1684-1756) was the son of Alexander Beall, (1649-1744), an immigrant from Fifeshire, Scotland, to Maryland. William Beall (whose wife was Elizabeth Magruder) was a substantial landowner in Frederick County, some of whose descendants intermarried with members of the Massachusetts Leonard family that moved to Monmouth County, New Jersey, and are discussed above.[39]

A virtual tour of Fort Frederick barracks provided by online by Maryland Park Service offers a glimpse of the captain’s quarters at the barracks, observing,[40]

The senior officer of the fort would have had the most spacious and luxurious quarters in the Governor’s House. The commander at Fort Frederick was typically Capt. Alexander Beall. Because he was an officer, his furnishings, clothing, accoutrements, etc. were paid for at his own expense. Therefore, the quality could vary at his discretion, although the quality and quantity of his possessions would be far superior to the companies’ enlisted men.

It’s interesting to note that the 9 April 1759 will of Alexander Beall in Frederick County shows him owning part of a large tract of land in Frederick County that bore the name King Cole.[41] The will stipulates that King Cole, a parcel of 246½ acres, was to go to Beall’s son Magruder. The original King Cole tract consisted of 1,970 acres patented to Henry Crabb on 30 August 1754.[42] By 1783, some fifty acres of the King Cole tract belonged to Joseph James, whose sister Hannah married Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard.[43] James obtained the land from his father-in-law James Austin. On 12 April 1791, Joseph sold this land to his father Griffith James, who then sold it along with James Austin on 3 March 1782.[44] This Frederick County land fell into Washington County at the creation of that county in 1776.

Some Notes about Joseph Chapline and Fort Frederick

In a previous posting, I noted the role played in the construction of Fort Frederick by Joseph Chapline (1707-1769), founder of Sharpsburg, where Griffith James lived. The posting I’ve just linked notes that Griffith James, whose daughter Hannah married Robert Leonard’s son Thomas, had ties to Chapline. The first document I’ve found for Griffith James in the Sharpsburg area is a 4 September 1763 agreement that Chapline made with Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected in Frederick County.[45] The agreement states that as Chapline made this agreement, he was reserving 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.

Note the name Samuel Beall: Chapline’s business partner Samuel Beall was a first cousin of Captain Alexander Beall, Robert Leonard’s commander at Fort Frederick. Samuel’s father John Beall was a brother of Alexander’s father William Beall. Samuel lived at Hagerstown thirteen miles north of Sharpsburg and close to Fort Frederick. Joseph Chapline helped to finance and support the construction of the fort and was awarded 10,000 acres of land by the Maryland Assembly in 1764 for his role in building the fort.[46] A 1757-8 muster list for Chapline’s militia company in Frederick County shows Richard Dean, whose son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn, along with Richard’s sons Thomas and William serving in Chapline’s militia company.[47]

Joseph Chapline served as a surveyor to the Proprietary in 1744, and in 1755 he formed the first company of militia in Antietam Hundred to protect the frontier against Indian raids during the French and Indian Wars.[48] Chapline played such a formative role at Fort Frederick that in the latter part of 1757, local inhabitants of the area around the fort offended by the behavior of some of the British officers stationed there wanted Chapline held responsible for the officers’ misbehavior.[49]

As I’ve also previously noted, the first military company organized for the Revolutionary war in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776, which included Robert Leonard’s son Thomas as well as his brother-in-law Samuel Dean and Samuel’s brother Thomas, was under the command of Joseph Chapline’s son Joseph (1746-1821).

In my next posting, I’ll comment on documents capturing Robert Leonard’s final years of military service as a sergeant in the 7th Maryland Regiment during the Revolutionary War.

[1] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. E, pp. 659-660.

[2] See Will H. Lowdermilk, History of Cumberland, Maryland, etc. (Washington, D.C.: Anglim, 1878), p. 278; and J. Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland, etc. (Philadelphia: L.H. Everts, 1882), p. 108. Lowdermilk says that a Benjamin Tomlinson was among the earliest settlers of Cumberland, Maryland, and built a house on Will’s Creek in 1789 five miles out from the town.

[3] Reuben Pownall Ely, et al., An Historical Narrative of the Ely, Revell and Stacye Families Who Were among the Founders of Trenton and Burlington in the Province of West Jersey 1678-1683, with the Genealogy of the Ely Descendants in America (New York, Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1910), pp. 183-193. See also John and Joyce Stroman Ely at Web Family Card site.

[4] Ely, Historical Narrative of the Ely, Revell and Stacye Families, p. 184, citing New Jersey Archives, vol. VI, p. 424.

[5] Ely, Historical Narrative of the Ely, Revell and Stacye Families, p. 185.

[6] Ibid.

[7] A Gentleman Officer at Fort Frederick, “The Material Culture of the Maryland Troops, Standards and Guidelines for Portraying a Member of the Fort Frederick Provincial Garrison 1756-1759,” at Friends of Fort Frederick website.

[8] See Lee Offen, “A Timeline of Maryland Forces from 1754 to 1764,” at Academia. This essay is also found at Offen’s History Reconsidered website.

[9] Maryland Gazette (Monday, 26 September 1754), p. 3, col. 1.

[10] Maryland Gazette (Thursday, 3 October 1754), p. 3, col. 2.

[11] Jared Sparke, The Life of George Washington (Boston, 1839; repr. Boston: Little, Brown, 1857), p. 71.

[12] “French and Indian War, Roster of Maryland Troops 1757-1759 [CALVERT PAPERS],” Maryland Historical Magazine 5,3 (September 1910), pp. 271-2.

[13] Patrick H. Stakem, Fort Cumberland, Global War in the Appalachians: A Resource Guide, 2nd edn. (2014), p. 14.

[14] Offen, “Timeline of Maryland Forces from 1754 to 1764.”

[15] See Joseph F. Folsom, “Colonel Peter Schuyler at Albany, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, n.s. 1,3 (July 1916), p. 162; and “Proceedings of the Council of New Jersey, 19 March 1747,” in Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey, ed. William A. Whitehead, ed., in New Jersey Historical Society, Archives of the State of New Jersey, vol. 6, series 1: 1738-1747 (Newark: Daily Advertiser, 1882), p. 425.

[16] Pennsylvania Gazette (11 September 1746), p. 2, col. 3.

[17] See Brad Leonard, “Descendants of Henry Leonard 1618 – 1678, Ironworker, of Massachusetts and New Jersey”; Bill Barton, “Leonard Siblings Henry, James, Philip, Sarah & Thomas in America and Some of Their Descendants”; and S. Falsey for Brad Leonard, “Leonard Genealogy, Leonards in America and Their Origins.”

[18] See William Stockton Hornor, New Jersey, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold, New Jersey: Moreau Brothers, 1932), pp. 209-210; O.B. Leonard, “The Leonard Family In New Jersey,” Monmouth Inquirer (8 and 15 November 1883); Edwin Salter, “Genealogical Records of the First Settlers of Monmouth and Ocean Counties and their Descendants,” in A History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne: F. Gardner and Sons, 1890), p. xxvii; Fanny Louise Koster, Annals of the Leonard Family (New York, 1911), pp. 195-6.

[19] “French and Indian War, Roster of Maryland Troops 1757-1759,” p. 271.

[20] Ely, Historical Narrative of the Ely, Revell and Stacye Families, p. 187.

[21] Maryland Gazette (Thursday, 11 March 1756) p. 3, col. 2.

[22] “Col. Washington’s Frontier Forts,” at website of Col. Washington’s Frontier Forts Association.

[23] “Fort Frederick State Park” at the website of Maryland State Parks. A virtual tour of the fort is available at “Fort Frederick Barracks Virtual Tour,” at the website of Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Park Service. For a visually rich essay capturing how Dagworthy’s troops at Fort Frederick were clothed, see Gentleman Officer at Fort Frederick, “The Material Culture of the Maryland Troops, Standards and Guidelines for Portraying a Member of the Fort Frederick Provincial Garrison 1756-1759.”

[24] Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1757-1758, vol. 55, “Acts of the Assembly Passed in April and May 1757,” pp. 119f.

[25] Henry C. Peden Jr., Marylanders and Delawareans in the French and Indian War 1756-1763 (Lewes, Delaware: Colonial Roots, 2004), p. 16.

[26] Ibid.

[27] The original Calvert Papers, consisting of family papers and other documents, is held by Maryland Historical Society of Baltimore. They are available as well on 32 reels of microfilm at the National Archives.

[28] “French and Indian War, Roster of Maryland Troops 1757-1759,” p. 272.

[29] Ibid., p. 281.

[30] Murtie J. Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 1732-1774 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 79-81.

[31] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. G, p. 155. This discharge was not recorded until 21 August 1761, hence its appearance in Record Bk. G and not F.

[32] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. F, p. 252.

[33] Ibid., pp. 291, 296.

[34] Ibid., p. 297.

[35] Ibid., p. 579.

[36] Ibid., p. 658.

[37] Peden, Marylanders and Delawareans in the French and Indian War 1756-1763, pp. 28, 65, 135, 157, 177, 185, 187, 201, 245, 295, and 361.

[38] “French and Indian War, Roster of Maryland Troops 1757-1759,” p. 272; and Ely, Historical Narrative of the Ely, Revell and Stacye Families, p. 187.

[39] Ernest E. Bell, One Lind of Descent from Our Immigrant Ancestor Alexander Bell/Beall of Maryland (Baywood Park, California, 1995, pp. 5-7, 236-7.

[40] See supra, n. 23.

[41] Frederick County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 127.

[42] See Edward C. Papenfuse and Sarah Patterson, “Dr. Arthur G. Tracey patent/tract index and map locations for

Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties,” prepared by the Maryland State Archives in October 2009.

[43] See 1783 tax list, Washington County, Maryland.

[44] Washington County, Maryland, Washington Deed Bk. G, pp. 368, 815-6.

[45] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. J, pp. 798-802.

[46] Peden, Marylanders and Delawareans in the French and Indian War 1756-1763, p. 64.

[47] Ibid., p. 80. See also Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 1732-1774, pp. 102-3.

[48] See Philip Craycraft, “Joseph Craycraft’,” at his Craycraft Family History site, citing a source entitled “Twigg Family Research Pertaining to the Life and Times of Robert & Hannah Twigg” by Jerry B. Twigg (1996).

[49] See Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1757-1758, vol. 55, pp. 332-4.

Robert Leonard (bef. 1730 – 1780): Discharge Document from British 35th Regiment of Foot (1762)

Or, Subtitled: “Lennard Serjt in Capt Allen’s Company has served honestly and faithfully”

And now the military discharge document: As my initial posting in this series about Robert Leonard notes, Thomas D. Leonard states in his “Biography of the Leonards,” “His discharge as a soldier of the English Army is yet in existence. It is in the family of Griffith Leonard in Tenn.; and I have seen it.” (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The discharge document is extant. It is now in the Southern Historical Collection at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, to which a Leonard descendant donated it in 1993. In May 2008, Beverly Dean Peoples, a researcher who descends from Gwendolyn James Dean, a sister of Thomas Leonard’s (1752-1832) wife Hannah James,[1] kindly sent me a valuable set of notes about Robert Leonard’s discharge paper after she examined it carefully at Southern Historical Collection.

Beverly’s notes tell me that the document is (or was then) in an oversize folder tagged “Misc. Records” with no contributor or special collection of any kind noted.[2] In the folder were eight documents, none of which seemed related to the other. Robert’s discharge document is pitifully worn and crumbled, according to Beverly — six rectangles of old paper about 4 x 6 inches each sewn together by hand with tiny stitches. It appeared to Beverly that what had been an original discharge document had been folded and had eventually come apart at the folds, so that the pieces were stitched together to reassemble the parts. Even then, most of the edges of the document are gone, Beverly reported, and often big sections of the page were missing.

Beverly noted that the discharge paper has writing on both sides. She offered the following transcript:

Witt: Forbis.

His Majesty’s 35 Regt.

General Charles Otway

These are to certify that ther

Lennard Sergt. In Capt Allen’s Campaign has served honestly and faithfully for the.

And is hereby discharged having been.

During the War.

24th day of July inclusive

at Havana the 5th day.

Robert Leonard Srgt.

In her book Tennessee Phantoms, Audrey Matthews offers both photographic images of the discharge paper (or of a portion of the paper) and the following transcription:[3]

His Majesty’s 35th Regim ⏤          

General Charles Otwayes Co

These are to certify that the ⏤

Lennard Serjt in Capt Allen’s Company

has served honestly and faithfully for ther ⏤

⏤  nd is hereby Discharged Having been

⏤  uns? the War

Within to be just, and to have received

24th Day of July Inclusive

Robert Leneard Serjt

Working with an archivist assisting her at the Southern Historical Collection, Beverly Peoples determined that the discharge papers evidently date from 1760-1764.

So the following important pieces of information may be gleaned from Robert Leonard’s discharge paper:

• He served as a sergeant under Captain Allen in General Charles James Otway’s HM 35th Regiment of Foot.

• He was discharged from this British military unit at Havana on 24 July in a year that appears to fall between 1760-4.

Charles James Otway (1694-1764) was a senior British Army officer who commanded the 35th Regiment of Foot from 1717 until his death in 1764. In April 1756, the 35th Regiment left Ireland, where it was then stationed, for North America for service in the French and Indian War, or as historians often name it, the Seven Years’ War, because the war was a global conflict and not an exclusively North American one.[4] Having landed in New York, the 35th began garrison duties on the northern frontier of the British American colonies, sending detachments to Mobile and up the Mississippi valley. In March 1757, five companies under Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monro including Captain Richard Allen’s unit marched from Albany toward Fort Edward and Monro assumed command of Fort William Henry.

In August 1757, Fort William Henry fell to French forces under Montcalm and following the surrender of the 35th and other British troops, a massacre occurred in violation of the treaty of surrender, with a number of those in the 35th Regiment among those killed. Soldiers of the 35th then withdrew and re-formed, and in July 1758, took part in the siege and capture of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. The 35th then played a key role in the battle of Québec in 1759, with the battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759 resulting in the capture of Québec by the British.

After Montréal fell following the final and decisive campaign of this North American part of the war between July and September 1760, the 35th, having completed its operations in North America, then took part in a West Indies campaign (1761-2) and was transferred south, taking part in the capture of Martinique in January 1762 and the Spanish stronghold of Havana in the summer of 1762.

Put together the information we can glean from Robert Leonard’s discharge document, the history of HM 35th Regiment of Foot in the period 1756-1762, and Robert Leonard’s documented service on the western Maryland frontier under Dagworthy, and a very interesting picture emerges: as noted previously, we can document that Robert was serving under Dagworthy by 8 February 1755.[5] As I’ll explain in a detail in a subsequent posting focusing on his military service in Maryland, a steady stream of documents then shows Robert continuing to serve Dagworthy’s captain in command at Fort Frederick, Alexander Beall, up to November 1758, when he was discharged from Beall’s military unit. In March 1759, we find Robert witnessing the discharge of another soldier from Beall’s troops, and that may indicate that he was still in Frederick County up to that date before he entered the service of the 35th Regiment and then took part in the Québec campaign in September 1759.

We know from Robert’s discharge paper that he joined Otway’s 35th Regiment and served under Captain Allen in that regiment. We also know from Thomas Dunlap Leonard in his “Biography of the Leonards” that Robert was in the battle of Québec. As we’ve just seen, the pivotal event in that battle took place in the battle of the Plains of Abraham in September 1759, and it can be documented that the 35th, with Allen’s troops included, played an important role in that event. So it appears that by September 1759, Robert Leonard was serving under Otway and Allen.

He was then discharged at Havana — the discharge paper states the place explicitly — on 24 July of an unstated year. Histories of the 35th show it capturing Havana in the summer of 1762. From some point in 1759 through July 1762, then, Robert Leonard served as a sergeant in Captain Richard Allen’s regiment of Otway’s 35th Regiment of Foot. At this point, he evidently returned to his wife Honor and their children in Maryland and then when the American Revolution got underway, it can be documented that he enlisted on 19 August 1779 in Frederick County as a sergeant in Captain John Reynolds’ company of the 7th Maryland Regiment.

Robert Leonard’s discharge document shows a Forbis witnessing the discharge in Havana in July 1762. This was Major William Forbes, who served with the 35th Foot during its campaigns across North America and the Caribbean and was in command of the unit at Pensacola in 1763.

Though one descendant of Robert Leonard has sought to convince me that the man of that name serving as a sergeant at Fort Frederick in the 1750s is a different person than the sergeant who was discharged from the 35th Regiment in July 1762, it’s clear to me that these are the very same man, the Robert Leonard to whose son Thomas and his descendants the military discharge document passed down. Thomas’ grandson Thomas D. Leonard, who would likely have had this information from Thomas and his wife Hannah, explicitly tells us that Robert Leonard was a soldier of the English army in the “War of 1760” who was at the battle of Québec (in 1759), and that he had seen Robert’s discharge paper at the house of Thomas Leonard’s son Griffith James Leonard.

Then in a power of attorney Robert’s widow Honor made with sons Thomas and Robert and son-in-law Colin Campbell in 1800, we’re told that Robert Leonard served as a “Sergeant in the war of 1753” connected to Washington, who was headquartered at Fort Cumberland in 1755 when we have every reason to think Robert Leonard was at that fort serving under Dagworthy. Document after document subsequently places Robert at Fort Frederick after that fort was built in 1756. In these documents as in the discharge document, Robert Leonard has the rank of sergeant, a rank the very same Robert Leonard subsequently held when he joined Maryland troops during the Revolutionary War.

In my next posting, I’ll look closely at the documentation we have for Robert Leonard’s service in the French and Indian War.

[1] See Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean, 2nd ed. (Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing Service, 2001),

[2] Working with an archivist, Beverly determined that the discharge paper had been donated to Southern Historical Collection in 1993 by Shirley Leonard of New Mexico.

[3] The Tennessee Phantoms (Prosser, Washington, 1989).

[4] See A.E. Readman, ed., Records of the Royal Sussex Regiment (Chichester: West Sussex County Council, 1985); Richard Trimen, An Historical Memoir of the 35th Royal Sussex Regiment of Foot (Southampton: The Southampton Times Newspaper and Printing and Publishing Co., 1873); Seven Years’ War Journal of the Proceedings of the 35th Regiment of Foot (1757), available digitally at Archive.org; John M. Kitzmiller, In Search of the “Forlorn Hope” (Ogden, Utah: Meridian, 1988); and University of New Brunswick Library, “Muster Books and Pay Lists (WO 12/4949): 35th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot: 1760-61, 1765-1782,” (Great Britain, War Office, PRO WO 12/4949) in The Loyalist Collection.

[5] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. E, pp. 659-660.

Robert Leonard (bef. 1730 – 1780): Testimony of Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s “Biography of the Leonards” (1883)

Robert Leonard (bef. 1730 – 1780) is one of the more problematic of my ancestors to sort out. There’s actually a goodly selection of documents providing first-hand information about his life. These include the following:

• A bible that appears originally to have belonged to Robert and wife Honor Pritchard Leonard

• A document showing him discharged from the British military unit HM 35th Regiment at a date only partly stated

• A document showing him indenturing his son William in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1755

• A power of attorney made by his widow Honor and other family members in 1800 stating Robert’s military service in the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars

• A trail of documents including muster lists, payment records, and other records capturing Robert’s service under John Dagworthy and Alexander Beall in western Maryland during the French and Indian War

• A generally very reliable family history written in 1883 by Robert’s great-grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard, which incorporates information told to him by his grandparents, Robert’s son Thomas and wife Hannah James

• Documents chronicling his enlistment in the 7th Maryland Regiment during the Revolutionary War, and his death in 1780 in the battle of Camden

A treasure trove of documents, then: but they’re in many ways the source of the problem of understanding his life story: they do not always cohere. They sometimes contradict each other. And two of the documents that have survived, the bible record and his military discharge, are partially destroyed and obscured, so that making out what they say is a real challenge.

Nor do any of the first-hand documents providing information about Robert Leonard tell us important pieces of information like when and where he was born, where he married, whether he was born Maryland where we have solid documentation of his presence by 1755, or whether he was born elsewhere. Was he, as many of his descendants have thought, an immigrant, born outside the American colonies? Even that’s not clear from the sources we have to work with.

There’s additional confusion about which of his sons was the oldest and when that son was born, confusion even about the names of his sons. We have a well-documented birthdate of 15 October 1752 for Thomas, who seems not to have been the oldest son. In 1755, Robert indentured his son William, who must have been born by at least 1750, one would think, to have been indentured in 1755.[1] It appears William was older than Thomas and was likely Robert’s oldest son, but — problems piled on problems — the list of Robert’s sons provided by In his 1883 account of the Leonard family, Thomas Dunlap Leonard does not even mention William, but speaks of a Samuel who seems to have been non-existent!

Explanations are in order….

Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s “Biography of the Leonards”

As previous postings have noted (and here), a major source for information about the family descending from Robert Leonard is an 1883 manuscript entitled “Biography of the Leonards,” which was written by Thomas Dunlap Leonard (1810-1888), a son of Robert Leonard (1777-1844) and Rachel Dunlap. Robert Leonard with wife Rachel was a son of Thomas Leonard (1752-1832) and Hannah James. As a previous series of postings indicates, Thomas was a son of Robert Leonard (bef. 1730 – 1780), the progenitor of this line of American Leonards.

As the postings linked at the start of the preceding paragraph note, Thomas Dunlap Leonard grew up in Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, living near his grandparents Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, and much of what he recorded about the first generations of this family came from information his grandparents shared with him. Here’s what Thomas D. Leonard has to say about Robert Leonard and his wife Honor Pritchard:

I shall give the life of Robert in the War of 1760 between England and France. He fought with England as well all the colonies in America was under the English government. He was at the Battle of Quebec. His discharge as a soldier of the English Army is yet in existence. It is in the family of Griffith Leonard in Tenn.; and I have seen it.

When the war took place between England and the colonies of America, he rebelled against England and fought with America and was killed at the battle of Camden, leaving a widow with four children. He married an English lady named Honor Pritchard, early after her arrival to America. We have not the history of the Prichard [sic] family. She brought up her four children in Maryland, giving a limited education, such as the opportunities of the times afforded of that age, yet of one thing we are sure that she was a lady of great moral worth of character, from the moral training that her children exhibited in their lives. Through a long life it has been my privilege to live with, and enjoy their society for twenty-five years of my life.

According to the testimony of his great-grandson Thomas D. Leonard, then, Robert Leonard the immigrant ancestor was “a soldier of the English Army” who took part in the “War of 1760 between England and France.” Note that Thomas D. Leonard does not state that Robert Leonard arrived in the American colonies as a British soldier. Generations of Robert’s descendants have concluded this, but this conclusion reads into the text something that Thomas D. Leonard does not actually say.

Thomas D. Leonard specifically says that Robert Leonard took part in the “War of 1760” as a soldier in the English army and participated in the battle of Québec. The pivotal event of that battle was the battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759, which resulted in the capitulation of Québec to British forces on 18 September.

As we’ll see down the road, Robert Leonard’s paper discharging him from service in HM 35th Regiment of Foot provides a strong basis for concluding that Robert did, indeed, take part in this military action in Canada in 1759, and served in the 35th  from some point prior to that date until he was discharged in Havana on 24 September 1762. But a stream of documents prior to the end of the 1750s show him, prior to this point, serving as a sergeant at Fort Frederick under General John Dagworthy in the defense of Maryland’s western frontier. So he did not arrive in America as a soldier in the English 35th Regiment, but joined that regiment after some years of service under Dagworthy in Maryland. Both at Fort Frederick and in the 35th, his rank was sergeant, as it was later during the Revolution. There’s strong reason to believe that Robert, who does not appear owning land in Frederick County, was a professional soldier throughout his adult life.

But the claim that Robert arrived in the colonies as a soldier of the English army gets the chronology of his military service backwards and reads into Thomas D. Leonard’s family history something Thomas does not say, namely, that Robert was serving in the 35th Regiment when he came to Maryland. He joined that English military unit only after having spent most of the 1750s already doing military service under Dagworthy at Fort Frederick and, apparently prior to the construction of Fort Frederick, at Fort Cumberland. I suspect that the reason Thomas D. Leonard speaks of Robert Leonard serving in the “War of 1760,” taking part in the battle of Québec, and then goes on to say that Robert was a “soldier of the English Army” is that he wants to draw attention to Robert’s service in the portion of the French and Indian War that occurred in Canada in 1759-1760 with the capitulation first of Québec in 1759 and then of Montréal in 1760, and with the 35th Regiment playing a well-documented role in these actions. As we’ve seen previously, the power of attorney that Robert’s widow Honor and sons Thomas and Robert along with Honor’s son-in-law Colin Campbell made in September 1800 states that Robert was a “Sergeant in the war of 1753” — that is, in the earlier years of the French and Indian War where we have good documentation of his service in western Maryland in the colonial troops commanded by John Dagworthy.

 As a previous posting has noted, there’s documentary evidence that Robert was in Maryland by 1755 when he indentured his son William there in Frederick County. He was almost certainly in Maryland by 1752 when his son Thomas was born. The posting I’ve just linked shows that various records place Robert Leonard at Fort Frederick some eighteen miles west of Hagerstown in the 1750s. Prior to that, he would have been at Fort Cumberland in 1755 when he indentured his son William, stating that he was “a soldier in Captain Dagurthey’s Company.” Construction began on Fort Frederick in 1756 and was completed the following year.[2] Prior to this point, Dagworthy’s troops were at Fort Cumberland on the Potomac west of Fort Frederick. As the posting I’ve just linked also notes, on the 1880 federal census, the one living child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, their daughter Hannah, reported that both of her parents were born in Maryland. If this is accurate information (and I see no reason to challenge it), then Robert and Honor Pritchard Leonard were living in Maryland by 1752 when their son thomas was born.

There’s sound documentary evidence, then, backing Thomas D. Leonard’s statement that Robert Leonard was a soldier involved in the war between England and France. This information undoubtedly came to him from his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard, and, as he goes on to say, he had seen the papers discharging Robert Leonard from his British military service, which were kept by Thomas Leonard and then his son Griffith James Leonard. I’ll discuss those discharge papers in more detail down the road.

As I’ve noted, the 12 September 1800 power of attorney given by Robert Leonard’s widow Honor and sons Thomas and Robert with son-in-law Colin Campbell provides yet another layer of proof of Robert Leonard’s military service in Maryland during the French and Indian War. The linked posting provides a digital image and transcription of this document, noting that the Leonards gave power of attorney to James Irwin of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to obtain any pay still due Robert Leonard for his service in both the French and Indian and Revolutionary War. About Robert’s military service in the two wars, the power of attorney states that he was,

Formerly Sergeant in the war of 1753 Genl. Washinton’s first Ridgiment and in the Late American war with Britain in the Maryland Ridgiment as Sergeant till killd. in Genl. Gatises Defiat.

Regarding the claim that Robert Leonard was a sergeant in General Washington’s first regiment in the “war of 1753”: as I’ve noted previously, I think this statement may be referencing tensions between John Dagworthy and Washington as the French and Indian War got underway and as Fort Frederick was constructed, and confusion about exactly who was in command at the two forts at which Robert Leonard was posted in the 1750s. As the posting I’ve just linked explains, in the fall of 1755, Virginia took possession of Fort Cumberland, where Dagworthy and his troops were stationed, and this placed Dagworthy on what historian Eric Sterner calls a “collision course” with Washington.[3] Washington was considered to be in charge of the fort, but Dagworthy saw him as a young upstart and refused to submit to his command.

As construction began on Fort Frederick in July 1756, Washington visited that fort, and in June 1758, he returned to the fort during his campaign to capture Fort Duquesne. All during these years, with documentary evidence that Dagworthy paid Robert Leonard for service up to March 1763,[4] there was interaction, usually hostile on the side of Dagworthy, between John Dagworthy and George Washington. And there were questions about who was in command of whom, so that confusion about whether Robert Leonard was serving under Dagworthy or Washington for part of this period of time is understandable. I’ll say more about these matters in a subsequent section of this overview of Robert Leonard’s life focusing specifically on his military service in the French and Indian War.

Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s “Biography of the Leonards” also tells us another important piece of information about Robert Leonard’s early years in the American colonies: he states that Robert “married an English lady named Honor Pritchard, early after her arrival to America.” Note that Thomas D. Leonard doesn’t state either when this marriage took place or where the couple married. A partly obscured item in the register of the bible have belonged to Robert and then his son Thomas — I’ll discuss the bible in detail later — states a 1747 date for some event that is obscured, and some Leonard researchers have suggested that this is a record of the date of Robert and Honor’s marriage, though much of this record is water-damaged and illegible.

I have no clue, by the way, why some Leonard descendants want to give Honor’s surname as Sellers when Thomas D. Leonard plainly states that it was Pritchard. I see no compelling reason to doubt Thomas D. Leonard’s testimony on this point. I strongly suspect that piece of information came to him from his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard.

Thomas D. Leonard offers one other interesting piece of information about Robert Leonard’s son-in-law Colin Campbell, who married Robert’s daughter Mary: he states, “This man was a British soldier.” Colin wouldn’t have been in service alongside Robert, since Colin was born in 1754 and was a generation younger than Robert. But since Robert Leonard appears to have been a professional soldier who served in the British army in the late 1750s and early 1760s, it seems worth noting that his son-in-law was yet another British soldier.

Finally, Thomas D. Leonard names the children of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard:

Robert was the oldest child, then Thos., then Samuel, then Mary.

This statement presents us with another conundrum: as I stated previously, we know for certain that by 8 February 1755, Robert Leonard had a son named William. We know this because the indenture he made on that date states that William Leonard, whom he was indenturing, was his son. The indenture contract does not state William’s age, unfortunately. But to be apprenticed in 1755, he has to have been more than a mere infant. Children as young as seven or eight years of age could be and sometimes were indentured in this period. It seems very likely that William was born prior to 1750 and was perhaps Robert Leonard’s oldest son.[5]

But Thomas D. Leonard makes no mention at all of a son William. He speaks, instead, of a son Samuel for whom no records seem to exist. “Biography of the Leonards” goes on to say that Samuel remained in Pendleton District, South Carolina, after Robert’s widow Honor and her children Thomas and Mary (Campbell) moved to Tennessee in 1808 or 1809 with Robert following soon after and with Samuel dying in South Carolina leaving, according to Thomas D. Leonard, children George, Samuel, Elizabeth, and Belinda.

A William Leonard died testate in Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1811 with a will dated 12 February 1811, probated 29 March 1811.[6] That will names as William’s executor a son George, and names younger children Elizabeth, Samuel, Mary Ann, Agnes, and Honor Malinda. This William Leonard is, it’s clear, the man of that name who arrived in Pendleton District almost simultaneously with Thomas Leonard and the other members of the Leonard family who moved from Washington County, Maryland, to Pendleton District in 1786. As a previous posting notes, after Thomas Leonard had a survey on the Big Generostee in Pendleton District on 9 February 1786, William Leonard also had a survey of 200 acres just north of Thomas’ survey on 21 February 1786.[7]

From 1786 through 1811, it’s fairly easy to document William Leonard’s life in Pendleton District, with document after document suggesting that he’s closely related to Thomas and Robert and their sister Mary Leonard Campbell. Thomas D. Leonard’s manuscript says that “Samuel’s” son George came to Tennessee to live with his Leonard relatives there, and there’s documentary evidence of George’s presence among those relatives in Tennessee.

But until William Leonard’s son Samuel came of age in Pendleton District around 1815, there’s nary mention of any Samuel Leonard in the records of Pendleton District, while there are copious references to a William Leonard who appears to be the same man as the Samuel identified as a son of Robert and Honor Pritchard Leonard in Thomas D. Leonard’s “Biography of the Leonards.” Thomas D. Leonard seems to be mistaken in stating that Robert Leonard had a son Samuel. Robert did, however, have a documented son William born prior to 1755 who appears to be the William Leonard who shows up in Pendleton District by 1786 when other members of the Leonard family arrived there from Maryland.  I suspect William was the oldest son of Robert Leonard.[8]

Why Thomas D. Leonard would have made this mistake about the children of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, I’m not sure, except that he knew personally the other three children of Robert and Honor Leonard, since he grew up near all of them in Tennessee and, later, Alabama — and he did not know the one child of Robert and Honor who remained behind in South Carolina. And, again, if Thomas was the second son of Robert and Honor and we can document that he was born in 1752, then it seems likely that if William was Thomas’ elder, he was born prior to 1750 — a birthdate also suggested by the 1755 indenture record.

About Thomas D. Leonard’s claim that Robert was the oldest child of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard: I have not found any firm documentation of Robert’s birthdate. The 1790 federal census, enumerating him in Pendleton District, South Carolina, simply shows him aged above 16 years.[9] In 1800, also in Pendleton District, he’s aged 26-44.[10] In 1810, still in Pendleton District, Robert’s age category is again 26-44.[11] The 1820 federal census has him, now in Lincoln County, Tennessee, aged over 45.[12] And the 1830 federal census, also enumerating him in Lincoln County and the last federal census on which he appears, shows him aged 60-69.[13] If that census has a correct birth entry for Robert, he was born between 1760 and 1769 and was younger than his brothers William and Thomas.

In my next posting surveying documents that tell the story of Robert Leonard, I’ll provide an in-depth look at Robert’s the register of the bible that originally belonged to Robert and wife Honor and to the document discharging him from service in HM 35th Regiment.

[1] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. E, pp. 659-660.

[2] See Debra R. Boender, “Fort Frederick (Maryland),” in Colonial Wars of North America, 1512-1763: An Encyclopedia, ed. Alan Gallay (Oxford: Routledge, 1996), pp. 236-7;“Frederick, Fort,” in Encyclopedia of the French and Indian War in North America, 1754-1763, ed. Donald I. Stoelzel (Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books, 2008), p. 160; Maryland Park Service, “Fort Frederick State Park History,” at website of  Maryland Department of Natural Resources; and “Fort Frederick,” in Forts of the United States: An  Historical Dictionary, 16th Through 19th Centuries, ed. Bud Hannings (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006), p. 193.

[3] Eric Sterner, “General John Dagworthy: George Washington’s Forgotten American Rival,” Journal of the American Revolution (online; 11 October 2017). See also George W. Marshall, Memoir of Brigadier-General John Dagworthy of the Revolutionary War (Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1895), pp. 13-15; “General John Dagworthy,” in Biographical and Genealogical History of the State of Delaware, vol. 1 (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: J.M. Runk, 1899), pp. 105-6; “Dagworthy Controversy,” at The Ladies of Mount Vernon’s George Washington’s Mount Vernon website; and “John Dagworthy” at Wikipedia.

[4] Henry C. Peden Jr., Marylanders and Delawareans in the French and Indian War 1756-1763 (Lewes, Delaware: Colonial Roots, 2004).

[5] The indenture document specifically states that Robert was indenturing his son William for fourteen years and seven months. When minors were indentured in Maryland at this period, the limit of indenture was usually up to their 21st birthday. If the indenture period is an indicator of William’s age at the time Robert indentured him, he would have been six years and five months old in February 1755, and therefore born in September 1748.

[6] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. A, pp. 129-130.

[7] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 15, p. 127; and Ninety-Six District, South Side of Saluda, Commissioner of Locations Plat Bk. B, p. 113.

[8] A thought that occurs to me, purely conjectural: could William have been a son of Robert Leonard born prior to Robert’s marriage to Honor Pritchard? If so, might that fact explain why Robert indentured a young son out in 1755 after he married Honor, by whom he had a son Thomas born in 1752? Perhaps Honor did not want to raise a son of Robert born to some other mother…. As I say, this is purely conjectural and should be taken as such.

[9] 1790 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 5. The surname is spelled Lennard.

[10] 1800 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 7.

[11] 1810 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 143. The surname is Leanard.

[12] 1820 federal census, Lincoln County, Tennessee, p. 11.

[13] 1830 federal census, Lincoln County, Tennessee, p. 190.

Thomas Leonard (1752-1832) and Hannah James (1752-1842): Children Robert, Thomas, John, Hezekiah, Samuel, Griffith, Colin, and Hannah

Or, Subtitled: “Saw Lincoln County when it was a cane brake infested with bear, wolves, deer and many other wild animals”

In three previous postings, I discussed the life of Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard. I began with a look at the documents that chronicle his early years in Maryland, where he was born in the part of Frederick County that became Washington County in 1776, and where Thomas married Hannah, daughter of Griffith James, about 1775. I then looked at Thomas’ years in Pendleton District, South Carolina, to which he, his siblings, and their widowed mother Honor moved from Maryland by early 1786. I ended with an examination of documents following Thomas’ life in Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, from 1808 up to his death in 1832. (Please click the numeral 2 below to read the continuation of this posting.)

In this posting, I’m going to provide a brief overview of the children of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James. My goal is to document salient facts about each of these children, e.g., dates and places of birth, marriage, and death. There’s much more information to be found about each child. The following accounts of the children of Thomas and Hannah James Leonard are not exhaustive:

1. Robert Leonard, the first child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 14 February 1777 in Washington County, Maryland, and died 4 August 1844 at Rusk in Cherokee County, Texas. On 17 March 1807 in Abbeville County, South Carolina, Robert married Rachel Dunlap. These dates of birth, marriage, and death are provided by Robert and Rachel’s son Thomas Dunlap Leonard in his record of the family of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James written in 1883. This document, entitled “Biography of the Leonards,” has been discussed in previous postings (and here) noting that its present whereabouts are not known and that it has circulated among Leonard descendants as a typescript.

Thomas Dunlap Leonard records the following about his parents Robert Leonard and Rachel Dunlap:[1]

Robert was the oldest child, born in Maryland the 14th of Feb., 1777. Married Rachel, dau of Wm. Dunlap in Abbeville District of So Carolina on 17 Mar 1807. He moved with his father to Lincoln Co Tn and settled on Cane Creek half a mile above Petersburg. Subsequently moved to middle Alabama, settled in Perry Co where he lived from 1818 to 1824, lived there until 1840, then to Texas, settled in Cherokee Co. where he died on 4 Aug. 1844 in the 67th year of his age. He was a hatter by trade, also a farmer. His life was spent in usefulness to his neighbors, his country and his family, teaching his children the importance of industry, honesty, and truthfulness. At all times with his wife taught their children the importance of the Christian religion which all had embraced before their death, but two and they embraced since the death of their parents. Robert was truly a good man, good husband, good father, good citizen; he was my father and his wife Rachel, my mother. Language will fail me in attempting to portray her excellencies. She was brought up in the faith and membership of the Presbyterian Church and strictly adhered to their discipline in the government of her family, teaching them to observe the commandments of our Saviour.

She ruled her children in love and impressed on their minds at their earliest age those principles of love to God and love of His services, and to search his words of truth for their guide through life. She became convinced of the importance of immersion as baptism, when she was about 40 years of age, when she and her husband were buried with Christ in baptism in Flint River, Madison Co. Ala. She lived to see all of her children members of the Baptist Church, but two and they followed in her footsteps after her death. She died in Cherokee Co, Tx in the year 1862 in the 62nd year of her life and was buried by the side of her husband in the town of Rusk, Cherokee Co. Tx. after having spent a long life of usefulness, to her family, neighbors, and church. Thus ended the life of a God loving woman.

A previous posting explains why I think it’s likely that, following Thomas Leonard’s marriage to Hannah James about 1775, this couple lived at Sharpsburg in Washington County, where Hannah’s father Griffith James lived. If I’m correct in deducing this, then Thomas and Hannah’s son Robert and the three (or possibly four: see the notes below on Samuel) brothers born after him in Washington County were probably all born in Sharpsburg.

A biography of Robert’s son William R. Leonard (1822-1905) in Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell Counties, Texas states that his father Robert Leonard was a soldier of the War of 1812 and served under Andrew Jackson at the battle of Horseshoe Bend.[2] His service papers show him serving under Colonel Robert Dyer in the Cavalry and Mounted Gunmen of Tennessee Volunteers.[3]

The biography of William R. Leonard also indicates that his father Robert Leonard moved about 1824 to Madison County, Alabama, where he lived on the Flint River nine miles east of Huntsville.[4] He then moved to Texas about 1840, according to this source, settling first in Nacogdoches County and then in Cherokee County, where he died in 1844, aged 67. A certificate for a Texas headright grant that Robert Leonard received on 4 March 1844 states that he arrived in Texas on 3 April 1840.[5] As a previous posting notes, Robert’s brother Thomas moved from Limestone County, Alabama, to Nacogdoches County, Texas, in June 1839, receiving a headright grant that fell into Cherokee County at that county’s formation in July 1845. In moving to this part of Texas in 1840, Robert Leonard was following in the footsteps of his brother Thomas.

At her “Leonard/Kellum/Hughes Family Tree” at Ancestry, Peggy Strickland states,[6]

According to old hand written Leonard Family history, Rachel [Dunlap]’s Father brought Rachel and her two sisters from Ireland, their mother having died in Ireland when Rachel was three years old. Her Father had previously been to America and fought in the Revolutionary War, in which he lost one leg.

The 1850 federal census for Cherokee County, Texas, on which the widowed Rachel is shown living at Rusk, reports her birthplace as Ireland.[7]  A previous posting talks briefly about a Limestone County, Alabama, court case that ensued after Robert Leonard’s brother Thomas sold his homeplace in that county to their brother John Leonard in 1839 as Thomas prepared to move to Texas. The court case, James Birdwell, assignee, vs. John Linard, revolved around a promissory note for $500 that James Birdwell, who married Thomas Leonard’s daughter Aletha, claimed Thomas assigned to him when John paid him for his land. James alleged that the promissory note was given to Rachel, wife of Robert Leonard, for safekeeping. Robert and wife Rachel moved to Texas soon after Thomas moved his family there. John Leonard died in 1846 and James, who then died in 1849, claimed that Rachel had never delivered John’s $500 promissory note to Thomas Leonard to him.

As the first-born son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James (and their first child), I think it’s likely Robert Leonard was given the name Robert after his paternal grandfather Robert Leonard.

2. Thomas Lewis Leonard, the second child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born in 1781 in Washington County, Maryland, and died in October 1870 in Cherokee County, Texas. About 1800 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, he married Sarah M. Lauderdale, daughter of John Lauderdale and Milbury Mauldin. Sarah’s name is consistently written in documents with the middle initial M.; I suspect her full name was Sarah Mauldin Lauderdale, and that she was named for her grandmother Sarah, wife of John Mauldin.

Thomas is my direct ancestor, and I’ve provided extensive documentation in previous postings about his life in Maryland, South Carolina and Tennessee, then about his years in Limestone County, Alabama (and here), and finally about his final years in Cherokee County, Texas.

3. John Leonard, the third child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born between 1781 and 1784 in Washington County, Maryland, and died 14 November 1846 in Limestone County, Alabama. In 1806 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, he married Hannah Fowler, daughter of Joshua and Elizabeth Fowler.[8]

My reason for assigning John a birthdate of 1781-4 is as follows: in his discussion of the children of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, Thomas Dunlap Leonard indicates that John was the third child of Thomas and Hannah, born after his brother Thomas and prior to his brother Hezekiah. We know that Thomas Lewis Leonard was born in 1781, and as I’ll discuss below, the tombstone of Hezekiah Leonard shows his date of birth as 24 June 1784. So John was born between 1781 and June 1784. The 1830 and 1840 federal censuses confirm that he was born between 1780 and 1789.[9]

Thomas Dunlap Leonard states the following about John Leonard:

John Leonard married Hannah Fowler, daughter of Joshua Fowler of So Carolina about 1806, moved to Madison Co., Ala, where he lived until 1838, when he moved to Limestone Co., Al, where he lived until death, which occurred about 1847 or 1848. Hannah, his wife, died in Madison Co. about 1828 or 1829. Their children were born near Madison Cross Roads in Madison Co. John lived through life as he had been reared up by his parents, a lover of all the ennobling virtues that constitute good child, a good husband, father and citizen. I was intimately acquainted with him, the last 20 years of his life. He was governed in all his actions through life from the noble principles of Christian spirit, truth and honesty was his motto. When I look back at the character of old acquaintances, John Leonard stands side by side with the best of citizens of old Madison Co. When I look back from my old age, my heart swells within me of love and admiration for the excellence of John Leonard. Aunt Hannah was truly his peer in all of the excellencies of wife, companion, mother and citizen. The character of her daughters prove the excellencies of the early training of the mother. Their deportment gives a better comment on the life and character of their mother than I can give.

In the War of 1812, John Leonard served in the 16th Regiment of Burrus’ Mississippi Militia.[10] Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Burrus’ regiment was comprised for the most part of men living in or near Madison County, Mississippi Territory (later Alabama), which bordered on Lincoln County, Tennessee.[11] Also serving in Burrus’ militia was Robert Leonard’s first cousin Samuel Dean, son of Robert’s aunt Gwendolyn James and husband Samuel Dean, and Moses Birdwell, father of James Birdwell who married John Leonard’s niece Aletha, daughter of Thomas Lewis Leonard. Moses also had a daughter whose given name I haven’t found, who married a Lamb, and Alfred L. Lamb, a son of that couple, married John Leonard’s daughter Hannah A.E. Leonard.

John Leonard’s date of death is stated in a will book of Limestone County, Alabama, according to his descendant Jackie Leonard of Athens, Alabama.[12]Minutes of the Limestone County circuit court case James Birdwell assignee vs. George W. Fisher admr. of John Linard dec’d. state on 2 December 1846 that “the said John Linard hath departed this life intestate as we are informed” and that George W. Fisher was estate administrator.[13] Fisher was granted administration on 6 December 1846.[14]

4. Hezekiah Leonard, the fourth child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 24 June 1784 in Washington County, Maryland, and died 27 March 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee. These dates of birth and death are inscribed on his tombstone in the Leonard family cemetery at the old Thomas Leonard homestead just north of Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[15]

Thomas Dunlap Leonard says this about Hezekiah:

Hezekiah, a son of Thomas and Hannah Leonard died at the home of his parents in Lincoln Tenn. about the year 1816. He was grown not married.

Hezekiah left a nuncupative will in Lincoln County dated 27 March 1817.[16] The will, which was probated 5 May 1817, states that Hezekiah was in “his last sickness” and bequeaths Hezekiah’s property to his brother Griffith. It was witnessed by his brother Robert and cousin George, son of William Leonard.

5. Samuel Leonard, the fifth child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born about 1786 in either Washington County, Maryland, or Pendleton District, South Carolina. He died about 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee. I estimate Samuel’s birthdate as about 1786 because Thomas Dunlap Leonard places him between his brother Hezekiah, who was born 24 June 1784, and his brother Griffith, who was born 26 September 1787. Since his parents moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, late in 1785 or early in 1786, I think he may have been born in either Maryland or South Carolina.

After having noted that Hezekiah Leonard died at the home of his parents in Lincoln County, Tennessee, in about 1816, Thomas Dunlap Leonard states:

Samuel at, and near the same time, he was just about grown.

I think it’s likely that Samuel is buried in the Leonard family cemetery, but I haven’t seen any transcription of a tombstone for him.

6. Griffith James Leonard, the sixth child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 26 September 1787 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died 1 September 1864 in Marshall County, Tennessee. On 7 April 1836 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, he married Nancy Emmett Porter, daughter of Stephen and Mary Porter.

Griffith’s dates of birth and death are recorded on his tombstone in the family cemetery on Thomas Leonard’s old homestead just north of Petersburg, Tennessee.[17] Griffith’s date of death is also stated in an affidavit given by John Cowden and the widow Nancy in Marshall County on 22 August 1868; the affidavit is found in his War of 1812 pension and bounty land application file.[18] John Cowden was the husband of Mary Hannah Leonard, daughter of Griffith and Nancy Leonard. John and his mother-in-law Nancy state that Griffith was aged 73 when he died on 1 September 1864. Their affidavit also says that he refused to vote for secession in the vote held in Tennessee on 8 June 1861 and was consistently loyal to the Union though his son Samuel was a Confederate soldier.

Thomas Dunlap Leonard offers a fulsome remembrance of his uncle Griffith James Leonard and Griffith’s wife Nancy:

Griffith J. Leonard remained with his parents until their death bestowing that care on them that was essential to their happiness is old age. Having by inheritance and cultivation obtained those hightoned traits of character that fitly qualified him for the practical duties of life as a good citizen, husband and father. His neighbors can all testify to his excellencies of character with pleasure. His children proved the excellencies of their parents.  Griffith Leonard was a superior order of intellect, had no opportunities of school la early life to improve his intellect. He was a self made man and had acquired a fine degree of practical and useful knowledge. A man of high toned moral principles not capable of condescending to any low degrading act under any circumstances. He was a true patriot through life, he fell from an unerring rifle shot of an Indian warrior on the furious battlefield of Talledega, Ala. in the year 1812. It pierced his neck and passed through, from which wound he recovered and lived to marry his [wife?] and bring up an excellent family. He also accumulated a good home, a good large tract of Tennessee best land for his amiable widow and children.

He leaves them as his parents left him viz, with high toned sense of moral training to qualify them for usefulness to society, themselves and their God. He died 1a the year 1864, being In the 77th year of his age. Thus ended the long and useful life of Griffith J. Leonard, leaving his amiable wife with a large family to care for at the end of a cruel war that had devastated nearly every ordinary contort of life, and in the midst of a helpless people as herself. Yet she by inheritance and education had a good stock of industry and economies to draw from. That she has brought up her excellent family is credit to herself and to her departed husband. She has demonstrated these excellent traits of character inherited from her parents end by education that so fitly qualified her for her duties as mother to her children and her labor has been crowned with success.

Nancy Porter was a daughter of Stephen and Sary Porter, born Jan. 10, 1818. They were the best of citizens, Iived up to those excellent rules of discipline that so eminently qualified them for usefulness in life to themselves, families, neighbors and their God. Stephen Porter’s excellent example will be remembered by his acquaintances with pleasure as long as their lives last. It affords me pleasure now to look back over half a century when Stephen Porter assembled his family and visiting neighbors around the family altar for prayer night and morning. His Godly influence was felt by his neighbors during life, and after death he was missed by all. He has gone to his reward of a good man. May his posterity emulate his worthy example.

Griffith’s War of 1812 pension and bounty land file contains further detailed information about his service and injuries during that war. On 1 August 1851, Griffith filed a bounty land claim in Marshall County that is preserved in this file. This document states that Griffith was aged 64 and living in Marshall County. It also notes he was a sergeant in Captain John Porter’s 1st Regiment of the Tennessee Militia under Col. J.K Wynn in the Creek War. He was drafted at Fayetteville, Tennessee, on 1 October 1813 and discharged at Fayetteville on 1 January 1814. The affidavit was signed by Griffith.

Another affidavit Griffith gave in Marshall County on 2 June 1855 is in the pension and bounty land file. This gives his age as 69 and states that he was a resident of Marshall County.  It further indicates that he was a 1st sergeant under Colonel John Porter in the 1st regiment of Col. John K. Wynn in the War with Great Britain and the Creek Indians of 1812-1815. He had made a bounty-land application for this service on 28 September 1850. Again, this document is signed Griffith Lenard.

A 4 July 1871 affidavit of Nancy Leonard in Marshall County found in the pension and bounty land file attests to her husband’s service. Nancy notes that Griffith was severely wounded on 8 November 1813 at Talladega, Alabama. She signs the affidavit Nancy E. Lenard. 

An affidavit provided by James Luna, an ensign in Griffith’s unit, on 4 September 1845 in Marshall County says that Griffith J. Leonard was a 1st sergeant in John Porter’s Company of West Tennessee Militia and served in the action against the Creeks from October 1813 to January 1814. He received a severe wound in his neck in the battle of Talladega on 9 November 1813, Luna states.

A biography of Griffith’s grandson Dr. John Norris Cowden also speaks of his grandfather Griffith J. Leonard’s War of 1812 service.[19]  Noting that John Norris Cowden was the son of Dr. John Cowden and Mary Hannah Leonard and was born in Marshall County, the biography states:

James Griffith Leonard, the father of Mrs. Cowden, was an intimate friend of General Andrew Jackson, under whom he served throughout the War of 1812, participating in the battle of Tishomingo [sic].

As Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s biography of his uncle Griffith notes, Griffith was the son who remained at home with his parents Thomas and Hannah Leonard up to their deaths, and for this reason, his father willed the family homeplace and land to his son Griffith. Thomas Leonard’s will is transcribed and discussed in a previous posting noting that the will stipulates that Griffith was to care for his mother Hannah up to her death. Griffith and wife Nancy continued living in the old Leonard house up to their deaths, with Griffith leaving the homeplace to his son William Stephen (Bud) Leonard.

In an article published in the Fayetteville Observer in August 1908, John Bright speaks of a number of early settlers of Lincoln County, Tennessee, including Griffith James Leonard.[20] Bright notes that Griffith, whose wife was Nancy Porter, came to Lincoln County at an early date, settling north of Petersburg and leaving “a character of good citizenship, worthy of imitation by his posterity.” 

Griffith James Leonard was named for his maternal grandfather Griffith James, who moved from Washington County, Maryland, to Pendleton District, South Carolina, following his children who had settled there in the 1780s. Photos of Griffith James Leonard, his wife Nancy, and their son Samuel with Samuel’s family are found at the Ancestry tree of Dawn Leonard, “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree.”[21] The photo of Griffith is found at the head of this posting.

7. Colin Campbell Leonard, the seventh child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born about 1791 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died between 16 June 1856 and 29 November 1859 in Jackson County, Arkansas. About 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, Colin married Jean Williams. As Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s brief biography of his uncle Colin states, Colin’s wife Jean died and he then married a second time. Thomas D. Leonard appears not to have known the name of Colin’s second wife.

Thomas D. Leonard states the following about Colin Campbell Leonard:

Collin Campbell Leonard son of Thos, and Hannah Leonard was born in Maryland, brought up in South Carolina, married Miss Jean Williams of Tennessee about the year 1817. I have no knowledge of the Williams family. They had only two children, a daughter and a son. I am under the impression both children are dead. Aunt Jean died and Uncle Collin moved from Lincoln County to McNairy County West Tenn. He married the second time, had seven children by her. I met with two sons on the battle field of Perryville, Ky. I have no further knowledge of his family.

Uncle Collin was dissipated (drank) in early life. He was a good soldier in the Indian war of 1812 to 14. He was a true friend to friends and bitter enemy to his enemies. He possessed noble generous principles. His latter life was a steady habits. He became a member of the Methodist church and a preacher before death. His sons informed us that their father was dead. Nothing further is known of his family.

The 1850 federal census shows Colin with a woman in his household whose name is given by the census taker as Mary A.L. (or S.?) Collins, aged 28, born in Virginia.[22] The census lists Colin as a farmer aged 59 who was born in Tennessee. Also in the household are children Colin C., 12, Thomas C., 8, William R., 6, and Levi W., aged 1, all born in Tennessee.

It appears to me that Mary is Colin’s wife, and that the census taker has inadvertently assigned her the surname Collins because her husband is named Colin C. Leonard. At some point after this census enumeration was made, the family moved to Jackson County, Arkansas, where on 20 June 1855, a circuit course case of debt, Atrides Crow v. Collin C. Leonard, was filed.[23] On 16 June 1856, Colin’s property was attached by the sheriff due to a judgment in this case.[24]

On 29 November 1859, Mary Leonard married Cyrus Black in Jackson County, Arkansas.[25] The marriage record gives Mary’s age as 37, indicating an 1822 birth year. This matches the birth year of the Mary who is found in Colin Campbell’s household on the 1850 federal census and who appears to be mother of his sons Colin C., Thomas C., William R., and Levi W.

The federal census shows Cyrus and Mary Black living at Cache in Jackson County, Jacksonport post office.[26] Mary is aged 37 and born in Virginia — a match to the Mary found in Colin C. Leonard’s household in 1850.  Also in the household are Thomas, William, and Levi from Colin’s household on the 1850 census, all now with the surname Black, and daughters Nancy and Alfy Black, aged 8 and 4, who are likely also children of Colin C. Leonard. Nancy was born in Tennessee and Alfy (who is likely Alpha) in Arkansas. 

Colin Campbell Leonard was named for his uncle Colin Campbell, who married Mary Ann Leonard, sister of Thomas Leonard. For a discussion of documents showing Colin Campbell Leonard receiving permission to keep an ordinary at his father’s house in Lincoln County, Tennessee, and being charged in that county with assault and battery, see this previous posting.

8. Hannah Leonard, the eighth child and only daughter of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 10 January 1795 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died 11 December 1886 at Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. On 1 July 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, she married William Depriest Moore, son of David Dower Moore and Jane Depriest.

These dates were inscribed on Hannah’s tombstone in the Moore family cemetery outside Petersburg.[27] The stone is now broken into pieces, though William D. Moore’s stone remains intact and legible.

The War of 1812 pension and bounty land application file of William Depriest Moore and wife Hannah contains a 23 May 1878 document stating that Hannah was aged 82, née Leonard, living near Petersburg, and had married William D. Moore on 1 July 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee.[28] William, who was a Virginia native, served during this war as a private in Captain David Elliott’s Company, Kentucky Militia.

Thomas Dunlap Leonard offers an extensive reminiscence of his aunt Hannah and her husband William D. Moore:

Hannah Leonard married William D. Moore of Kentucky in the year 1827. He was a house painter and cabinet workman, equal to any of his day. He was a man of superior genius of mind, his natural endowments were above the average. He cultivated it to a general usefulness in practical science. He was a good farmer, fine judge of stock, which he had a fine taste for and cultivated successfully. He was truthful, honest, and reliable in every sense of the term. He accumulated a good living, raised a family of six children, viz Angeline, Thomas D., Alpha, Alitha, William C., Margaret, and Amanda. He died in November in 1855, leaving Hannah with a competency and with her most amiable of children to take care of her in old age, which duty they here performed, to credit to themselves and satisfaction to their aged mother, who still survives and is now 89 years of age, now living with her son-in-law and daughter, Jo. J. S. and Angelina Gill.

Hannah was the only daughter of Thomas and Hannah Leonard. Language fails me to portray the excellencies of this good woman neither can her neighbors or children do her justice. She has lived for seventy five years near where she now Ilves. Saw Lincoln County when it was a cane brake infested with bear, wolves, deer and many other wild animals.  Right around Petersburg and cane Creek all of her age have gone across the river. She is left as a lone tree of the forest but must soon fall, and go to join her loved ones that have gone before and must follow after. She has an Inheritance awaiting her that is far better than anything she has ever realised on earth. I rejoice to know that kindred blood course my veins, that I can say she is my aunt, my father’s sister.  I rejoice to know she has left such a noble posterity that acted well their parts in life. I rejoice to know that I as their biographers of William D. and Hannah Moore gives me such pleasure to speak of their merits without a stain on their character. I rejoice to know that the hand and heart of their daughter[s] have been sought by the noblest sons of Tenn., also that their sons sought and obtained their equals in the daughters of Tennessee.

A portrait-photograph of Hannah Leonard and William Depriest Moore appears in a number of published sources and has recently been published online as their old Marshall County homeplace and farm have gone on the market for sale.[29] The portrait is featured along with photos of the farm and the Moore house in Amy Edmiston’s Pretty Old Places blog.[30]

[1] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known). The 14 February 1777 date of birth is also stated in a lineage provided by Sarah Johnson Berliner to DAR: See NSDAR Lineage Book, vol. 93 (1912) p. 83; and Mary Smith Fay, War of 1812 Veterans in Texas (New Orleans, 1979; repr. Greenville, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1994), apparently citing records filed by U.S. Daughters of 1812 Descendants.

[2] Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell Counties, Texas (Chicago: Lewis, 1893), pp. 721-3. This biography gives William’s middle name as Rinualdi. The “Anderson-Monroe Family Tree” at Ancestry maintained by weblady173 has a digital image of a page from a bible that appears to have belonged to one of William R. Leonard’s children, giving his middle name as Roden. This Ancestry tree also has a copy of an undated autobiography written by William R. Leonard near the end of his life, which appears not to have been finished and was transcribed by one of his children.

[3] NARA, Indexes to the Carded Records of Soldiers Who Served in Volunteer Organizations During the War of 1812, compiled 1899 – 1927, documenting the period 1812 – 1815 RG 94, file of Robert Lenard, available digitally at Fold3. Fay, War of 1812 Veterans in Texas, states that Robert served in Captain Edwin S. Moore’s Company of Tennessee Volunteers.

[4] Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell Counties, Texas, pp. 721-3.

[5] Nacogdoches District Court Returns, files 54 and 58, available digitally at the website of Texas General Land Office.

[6] PeggyStrickland55, “Leonard/Kellum/Hughes Family Tree,” Ancestry.

[7] 1850 federal census, Cherokee County, Texas, town of Rusk, p. 61 (dwelling/family 412, 31 October).

[8] The marriage is indexed in Ancestry’s database entitled South Carolina Marriage Index, 1641-1965, compiled by Hunting For Bears (2005). A specific date of marriage is not given in this database; this entry appears to be citing Georgia Genealogical Magazine, no. 60-61 (spring-summer 1976). Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s “Biography of the Leonards” also states that John Leonard married Hannah Fowler “about 1806.”

[9] 1830 federal census, Madison County, Alabama, p. 72A, showing John aged 40-49 (the surname is Linard here); and 1840 federal census, Limestone County, Alabama, p. 151A, showing John aged 50-59.

[10] NARA, Indexes to the Carded Records of Soldiers Who Served in Volunteer Organizations During the War of 1812, compiled 1899 – 1927, documenting the period 1812 – 1815, RG 94, file of John Lenard, available digitally at Fold3.

[11] See “16th Regiment, Mississippi Militia, War of 1812,” at WikiTree.

[12] Jackie Leonard is citing Limestone County, Alabama, Will Bk. 7, p. 333, which states that John Leonard was “dec’d. 14 Nov. 1846.” Because this will book is under lock and key in the digital files available at the FamilySearch site, I haven’t been able to access the original and obtain further information about this document.

[13] Limestone County, Alabama, Circuit Court Minutes Bk. 1847-1857, p. 136.

[14] Limestone County, Alabama, County Court Record Bk. 1830-1849, p. 422 mistakenly writing the year as 1847 and not as 1846.

[15] See Find a Grave memorial page of Hezekiah Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B., maintained by Prairie Mary, with a tombstone photo by Jimmy Trout.

[16] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Will Bk. 1, p. 156-7. See also Frances T. Ingmire, Lincoln County, Tennessee, Wills, Inventories, and Miscellaneous, March 1809 – April 1824 (St. Louis, 1984), p. 8; and Helen C. and Timothy R. Marsh, Wills and Inventories of Lincoln County, Tennessee (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1989), p. 8.

[17] See Find a Grave memorial page of Griffith J. Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Louise Jenkins, with a tombstone photo by Jimmy Trout.

[18] NARA, War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, compiled ca. 1871 – ca. 1900, documenting the period 1812 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of Griffith J. Lenard, WC 15252, widow Nancy E., WO 25978, available digitally at Fold3. Nancy’s widow’s brief has a cover page stating that her maiden name was Nancy E. Porter and that she received certificate 15252 and bounty land warrants 56760-40-50 and 79828-12055. This cover pages also says that Griffith J. Leonard and Nancy Porter married in Lincoln County, Tennessee, on 7 April 1836, and that Nancy died 18 April 1910 at Petersburg, Tennessee.

[19] John Trotwood Moore and Austin P. Foster, Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923, vol. 3 (Chicago: S.S. Clarke, 1923), pp. 238-241. See also this previous posting about Dr. John Norris Cowden.

[20] Fayetteville Observer (27 August 1908).

[21] Ancestry tree “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree, maintained by dawnleonard818. Photo of Griffith, of wife Nancy, and of son Samuel James Leonard with his family.

[22] 1850 federal census, Rutherford County, Tennessee, Gambrill district, p. 184 (dwelling/family 483, 30 September).

[23] Jackson County, Arkansas, Circuit Court Minutes Bk. B, pp. 544-5, 561.

[24] Jackson County, Arkansas, Deed Bk. G, pp. 32-5.

[25] Jackson County, Arkansas, Marriage Bk. I.

[26] 1850 federal census, Jackson County, Arkansas, Cache, Jacksonport post office, p. 610B (dwelling/family 1069; 7 August). Cyrus Black appears to have died by 17 December 1866, when Mary E.L. Black married Ephraim L. Hughey, a South Carolinian who came to Arkansas from Fayette County, Alabama, in Jackson County. Ephraim died in Jackson County on 4 May 1874 and the 1880 federal census for Jackson County shows Mary as the widow Hughey with her son Levi W. Leonard (this is his surname now, not Black) living next to her with his wife Mary Catherine Narrimore and their children.

[27] See Helen C. Marsh, Timothy R. Marsh, and Ralph D. Whitsell, Cemetery Records of Marshall County, Tennessee (Shelbyville, Tennessee: Marsh Historical Publishing, 1981), p. 253. The 10 January 1795 birthdate for Hannah also appears in Jane Wallace Alford, Revolutionary War Patriots of Marshall County, Tennessee (Lewisburg, Tennessee: Webb, 1976); in Gail Gill Sanders, “Joseph Jonathan S. and Angelina (Moore) Gill,” in Heritage of Lincoln County, Tennessee, ed. Lincoln Co. Heritage Committee (Waynesville, NC: Walsworth, 2005), p. 321; and in Adelaide Moore Moss, “William Depriest Moore,” in ibid., p. 517. This birthdate for Hannah Leonard is also stated in DAR lineage reports submitted by Nancy Alford of the Robert Lewis chapter of Tennessee (DAR no. 537116) and of Mary Aletha Hathaway Dorsey of the Chief John Ross chapter (DAR no. 537605), both entering DAR as descendants of David Moore, father of William Depriest Moore.

[28] NARA, War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, compiled ca. 1871 – ca. 1900, documenting the period 1812 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of William D. Moore, , WC pension 17127 and WO pension 31237, available digitally at Fold3.

[29] See J. Lester Wolfe, “Thomas Leonard,” in Heritage of Lincoln County, Tennessee, ed. Lincoln County Heritage Committee (Waynesville, North Carolina: County Heritage, 2005), p. 414; and Adelaide Moore Moss, “William DePriest Moore,” in ibid., p. 517, noting that Moss notes that William DePriest Moore and Hannah Leonard belonged to Union Grove Presbyterian church in Marshall County.

[30] Amy Edmiston, “The Moore Homestead,” Pretty Old Places.

Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard: Lincoln County, Tennessee, Years (1808-1832)

Or, Subtitled: “My will and desire is that my wife Hannah, Leonard, Shall remain quietly in peaceable poſseſsion, of the room, commonly called hers, during her natural life”

This posting continues (and concludes) my documentation of the life of Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard. This series began with an account of Thomas’s birth and coming of age in Washington County, Maryland, and then followed him to Pendleton District, South Carolina, where he and wife Hannah, his widowed mother Honor, and other family members settled in 1786 after they moved from Maryland. Now this final posting about Thomas’s life will document it life in its final period in Lincoln County, Tennessee. (To read the continuation of this posting, click the numeral 2 below.)

I’ve told some of the story of Thomas Leonard’s move from South Carolina to Tennessee in a posting about his son Thomas Lewis Leonard, who is my ancestor. As the linked posting says, an 1883 family history written by Thomas Dunlap Leonard, a grandson of Thomas Leonard who grew up knowing his grandparents Thomas and Hannah Leonard and hearing their account of the family’s history, states that Thomas and Hannah moved their family from South Carolina to Tennessee in 1806.[1]

Arrival in Tennessee

The 1806 date for the family’s move is repeated in other published accounts of this Leonard family.[2] Family histories assigning an 1806 date for the arrival of the Thomas Leonard family in Lincoln County, Tennessee, also state that the family received a land grant on Cane Creek in Lincoln (later Marshall) County for the service of Thomas’s father Robert Leonard in the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars. According to Angelina May Gill Wallace, a great-granddaughter of Thomas’s daughter Hannah Leonard Moore, the original papers for this land grant remained in the possession of the Leonard family at Petersburg, Tennessee, in 1947 when Wallace’s article was published.

The document to which Angie Gill Wallace refers was, however, not a land-grant document. It was, rather, the 12 September 1800 power of attorney that Thomas, his brother Robert and brother-in-law Colin Campbell, and mother Honor Leonard gave to James Irwin in Pendleton District, South Carolina, authorizing Irwin to claim back pay and any possible land grant due to them for Robert Leonard’s service in the two wars. This power of attorney is discussed and transcribed in a previous posting.

I have found no record of a land grant given to the Leonard family in Tennessee (or elsewhere) for Robert Leonard’s service. As I’ve previously explained, the first record I find for this family in Lincoln County, Tennessee is a deed for Thomas’s purchase of 640 acres from Anthony Foster on a north branch of Elk River on 21 September 1809.[3] The north branch of Elk River to which the deed refers is Cane Creek, which flows into Elk River, tributary of the Tennessee River that meets the Tennessee River in Limestone County, Alabama. Elk River does not at any point run through Marshall County, Tennessee, though it flows through Marshall’s parent county of Lincoln.

Thomas Leonard’s September 1809 land purchase in Lincoln County, Tennessee, followed his and wife Hannah’s sale of their homeplace in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 29 January 1808 and Hannah’s relinquishment of dower for this sale on 15 February 1808.[4] It’s clear that the Leonard family made its move from South Carolina to Tennessee between 25 February 1808 and 21 September 1809.

These dates correspond with information that appears in a November 1894 article published in the Fayetteville [Tennessee] Observer.[5] The article quotes S.J. Leonard of Petersburg, a grandson of Thomas and Hannah Leonard and a son of their son Griffith James Leonard. Samuel James Leonard states in the article that his father Griffith came to Cane Creek in Lincoln (later Marshall County) in 1808. As we’ll see below, Thomas Leonard willed his land on Cane Creek near Petersburg to his son Griffith, who lived and farmed with his father after the family settled on Cane Creek, inheriting the Leonard homestead that will be discussed below.

A previous posting discusses Thomas Leonard’s September 1809 purchase of 640 acres in Lincoln County in detail. As the posting notes, Thomas’s sons Griffith and Thomas witnessed Anthony Foster’s deed to their father and proved the deed at May court 1810.[6] A land entry recorded by Charles Gibson on 14 April 1811 at the head of Cane Creek and the north Branch of Elk River states that the land Gibson was entering joined land on which Thomas Leonard was living at that time, which had originally been granted to Anthony Foster.[7] When Robert Leonard, son of the elder Thomas, entered forty acres on the head of Pigeon Roost, a branch of Cane Creek on 16 April 1818, the entry again stated that Thomas Leonard was living on adjoining land acquired from Anthony Foster.[8]

Also previously noted: Leonard researcher Sue Cooper suggests that Thomas Leonard and his brothers Robert and William may actually have moved initially from South Carolina to Sumner County, Tennessee. She bases this conjecture on the fact that a ledger of an unidentified Sumner County merchant she has seen shows these three men with accounts in 1806-7. It’s well documented that Thomas and his brother Robert did settle with their mother Honor and with brother-in-law Campbell in Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, but it can also be shown that William died testate in Anderson County, South Carolina, in March 1811.[9] And it’s clear that Thomas Leonard was still living in Pendleton District, South Carolina, in January 1808 when he and wife Hannah sold their homeplace there.

1810-1820

Histories of Lincoln and Marshall Counties note that by 1810, Thomas Leonard was settled on the middle fork of Cane Creek in that county. Goodspeed’s history of Lincoln County notes that Thomas was a settler on Cane Creek in the first or second decade of the 19th century.[10] A 19 June 1810 court record states that he was assigned by the court to oversee a road from the west fork of the west side of Little River where the road intersected the road from Jefferson to the mouth of Little River near Major Smith’s.[11]

At some point after the family arrived in Tennessee, Thomas Leonard’s family built a house on their homestead north of Petersburg that stood until the latter half of the 20th century. I have not seen information dating the initial construction of this house. The spring 1979 issue of Marshall County Historical Quarterly has a picture of the old Leonard homeplace on its cover (see the image at the head of this posting).[12] The house was a two-story white frame house with chimneys at both ends and porches on front and back. It appears to have been built in the early Greek Revival pattern of antebellum Southern farmhouses, and to have been added onto as the family grew, so that there was large lean-to wing projecting out of the back of the house.

In her Marshall Gazette article of September 1947, Angie May Gill Wallace talks about the “Leonard homestead” established by Thomas Leonard’s family.[13] She describes the old Leonard house as follows:

The dwelling is a low rambling farmhouse with wide porches constructed of logs and clapboard. The farm buildings are in excellent repair, having been recently heired by Mr. John Wilson of Lewisburg, Tenn., who is a grandson six generations removed. … At the termination of one of the garden walks is the family graveyard where Thomas and Hannah Leonard with many of their descendants are buried.

In an article she published in 1975 in the Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly, Elizabeth Baxter notes that the cemetery that Angie Gill Wallace says is at the termination of a garden walk from the old Leonard house is on a hill overlooking a lake, and is shaded by trees that lend their beauty to the site.[14] It’s not clear to me what lake Baxter is referring to here. Cane Creek is definitely visible from the hill on which the cemetery stands, and to the east of the creek is a body of water that may be a pond or small lake, but I’m not sure that water feature is visible from the cemetery.

A biography of Dr. John Norris Cowden in Tennessee, the Volunteer State also speaks of the old Leonard House as it stood in 1923.[15] John N. Cowden was a son of Dr. John Cowden and Mary Hannah Leonard, a daughter of Thomas Leonard’s son Griffith James Leonard. The biography states: “Thomas Leonard, removed from North [sic] Carolina to Tennessee, settling on a land grant, and the old mill, house and barn which were erected one hundred and twenty-six years ago are still standing on the farm, which is now owned by W. S. Leonard, an uncle of the subject of this review.”[16]

As a previous posting notes, the old Leonard house and family cemetery behind it are located about 2½ miles north of Petersburg at what’s now called Leonard Bluff on Liberty Valley Road.[17] As the linked posting says, I visited the cemetery in February 2008, noting that the old homestead house was no longer standing.

As the biography of John Norris Cowden indicates, after settling on Cane Creek, Thomas Leonard erected a mill on his land. Berry C. Williams provides the following information:[18]

Joel Yowell, an early citizen of Petersburg, had a large horse-mill two miles from Petersburg, with a hand-bolting machine attached. Jesse Riggs and Thomas Leonard also had mills of this kind. Leonard and Yowell had wheat threshers attached to their mills, and Leonard also had a cotton-gin attached.

According to Helen and Timothy Marsh, an old clerk’s list of early land transactions in Lincoln County that were otherwise not recorded shows that in May 1810, Anthony Foster deeded to Thomas Leonard another 230 acres in Lincoln County, which Foster had acquired as a Tennessee land grant.[19] The deed was proven at Lincoln County court on 28 May 1810 by oaths of Griffith and Thomas Leonard, with the surname spelled as Linard.[20] Immediately preceding this notation in the court minutes books is a record of a grant of 230 acres by the state of Tennessee to Anthony Foster, with the note that this was grant no. 674. The same court minutes state that at this court session, Thomas proved his ear mark, a swallow fork in each ear. In addition to the other early records I’ve just cited, an 1810 Lincoln County muster roll of local militiamen includes Thomas.[21]

As the last posting notes, after his move to Tennessee, Thomas Leonard appeared in litigation in Pendleton District, South Carolina. The linked posting discusses a lawsuit filed by Thomas in May 1810 regarding a promissory note that had been assigned to him by William Glenn, to whom Thomas and wife Hannah sold their South Carolina homeplace. An 8 February 1812 deed in Pendleton District also notes that Patrick Norris had sold Ezekiel Pickens 140 acres on Oolenoy Creek of the Saluda River on 7 October 1811, pursuant to an October 1810 judgment for Thomas Leonard in this suit re: the promissory note, Thomas Leonard vs. John McClure.[22]

Lincoln County court minutes for 27 May 1811 show Thomas Leonard on a road jury to mark a road the nearest and best way from Fayetteville to the Bedford County line and on to Fishing Ford and Nashville.[23] Because Thomas Leonard’s son of the same name was of age by 1811 and had not yet moved from Tennessee to Alabama, this record could refer to either of the two Thomas Leonards. As a previous posting notes, another 1811 court order specifies that the Thomas Leonard to whom the order was issued was Thomas Sr.: on 28 August 1811, the county court ordered Thomas Leonard Sr. to oversee a road from Robert Leonard’s to Gibson’s Gap, with hands to work under him including his sons Thomas, Hezekiah, Griffith, and Samuel Leonard.[24] Since many Lincoln County documents in the period 1808-1818 when both Thomases were living in Lincoln County and both of age do not use the Sr. or Jr. designation, it is not always simple to know to which Thomas the documents refer.

Court minutes for 3 May 1814 report that Thomas Leonard had been indicted by the state of Tennessee on a charge of tippling.[25] The court minutes about this case state that James Greer, prosecutor, and Arthur Brooks, witness on behalf of the state, had been required to post bond ($100 for Greer and $50 for Brooks) on condition that they appear to give testimony against Thomas Leonard. I take the charge to mean that Thomas was distilling and selling whiskey. As we’ll see later when we have a look at Thomas’s will, the will confirms that he had a still, which he bequeathed to son Griffith in his will.

On 7 May 1814, no true bill was found in the state’s case against Thomas on the charge of tippling.[26] The grand jury ordered the state to pay costs. It’s interesting to note that two days prior to this, Thomas’s son Colin Campell Leonard had been given permission by the court to keep an ordinary at his father’s house.[27] At the same May 1814 court session, the state charged James Greer, the prosecutor in Thomas Leonard’s case, with tippling. Also at this court session, a charge of assault and battery against Thomas’ son Colin was continued. On 4 August 1814, Colin was found guilty of assault and battery on James Greer. This series of court records make one wonder if a dispute between Greer and the Leonard family over the market for whiskey was driving Greer’s prosecution of Thomas Leonard for operating a tippling house.

In his 1883 history of the Leonard family, Thomas Dunlap Leonard observes that “Uncle Colin was dissipated (drank) in early life,” but had been a good soldier in the Indian War of 1812-4.[28] Thomas D. Leonard went on to observe that Colin had been a true friend to his friends and a bitter enemy to his enemies, and possessed noble and generous principles. In his later life, he had steady habits, and became a Methodist preacher, Thomas D. Leonard added.

On the subject of fighting and carousing: Goodspeed’s history of Lincoln County says that Petersburg, Fayetteville, and Arnold’s Grocery (now Smithland) were noted places for the settlement of all sorts of grudges in “pummelling” fights.[29] Apparently the fights were public spectacles and the onlookers assured that fair play occurred, biting and weapons being outlawed. 

Court minutes for 9 November 1814 show Thomas Leonard having resigned from his position as overseer of a local road and Stephen Harmon appointed “in room of” Thomas.[30] This record could possibly refer to Thomas’s son Thomas, who might by this point have begun his preparations to move his family to Alabama. A Thomas Leonard continues to appear in court minutes as a juror: court minutes for 18 February 1815 show him on a jury that found John Porter guilty of hog stealing.[31] In May 1815, Thomas Leonard is listed among those owing notes to the estate of George C. Witt in Lincoln County.[32]

On 3 May 1815, Thomas or his son Thomas appears in court minutes on a jury in the case of Samuel A. Harris vs. Thomas Shute.[33] This may be the case that is listed in the same court session as James Harris vs. Thomas Shute.[34] At issue in the case was a dispute about who caveated a tract of land.

On 4 May 1815, the elder Thomas Leonard was tried on the state charge of tippling.[35] The court record identifies him as a “yeoman,” stating that he had pled not guilty and “for his trial put himself on the County.” The jury, which included his nephew Joseph Dean, found him guilty, fining him a dollar plus costs. On the same day at the same court session, Thomas or his son of the same name was on a jury that tried Obediah Hogg on a state of Tennessee indictment of assault and battery.

Court minutes for 8 May 1816 show Thomas or his son Thomas serving as a juror along with Griffith Leonard in the case of James Daniel vs. John Bell.[36] A 21 April 1818 survey of thirty-five acres on the headwaters of Cane Creek in Lincoln County for land assigned by Brin(?) M. Gassen says that the tract bordered land assigned by Anthony Foster to Thomas Leonard, on which Leonard was then living.[37]

23 October 1819, Thomas was on a jury in several Lincoln County trials.[38] We can know with certainty now that this is the elder Thomas, since his son of that name moved to Alabama in 1818.

1820-1830

The 1820 federal census enumerates the household of Thomas Leonard in Lincoln County with one free white male aged 26-44, one free white male aged 45+, and a free white female aged 45+.[39] Thomas is also shown as holding four enslaved people. Next to Thomas is the household of son-in-law William Depriest Moore, who married Thomas’ daughter Hannah, and next to William Moore is Thomas’s brother-in-law Colin Campbell. The younger male in the household with Thomas and Hannah Leonard is their unmarried son Griffith James Leonard.

As previously discussed, Thomas’s son Thomas Lewis Leonard sold two tracts of land on Cane Creek in Lincoln County to his uncle Colin Campbell on 16 August 1822, one containing 135 acres and the other twenty acres.[40] The posting I’ve just linked notes the documents showing when Thomas Leonard younger obtained these pieces of land, and their location next to his father’s original 640-acre tract. On 27 January 1823, both deeds were proven in court by the subscribing witnesses.[41]

Thomas Leonard’s family appears on the 1830 federal census in Lincoln County with one male 30-40, one male 80-90, and 1 female 70-80.[42] In the household are also eight enslaved persons: slaves: one male 10-24, two males 36-55, and 3 males 55-100; one female 55-100, and one female over 100.

The male aged 30-40 in Thomas Leonard’s household in 1830 was, again, Thomas’s son Griffith James Leonard, who was born 25 September 1787, according to his tombstone in the Leonard family cemetery.[43] In his 1883 Leonard family history, Griffith’s nephew Thomas Dunlap Leonard states that Griffith remained with his parents until their death, bestowing care on them in their old age.[44] As has been previously noted and as we’ll see in more detail a moment, Thomas Leonard’s 9 July 1829 will left the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg to his son Griffith, who lived his whole life at the homeplace, according to Angie May Gill Wallace, and left it to his youngest son William Stephens (Bud) Leonard.[45] 

Thomas Sr. and Jr. are on an 1830 tax list in Lincoln County in the district of Thomas’s son-in-law Capt. William D. Moore’s. Thomas Sr. is taxed for 230 acres on Cave Creek. His son Griffith is also taxed for 128 acres on Cave Creek in the same district, on Cave Creek. Since Thomas’s son Thomas was in Limestone County, Alabama, by this time, the tax list appears to indicate not that he lived in Tennessee, but still owned land there.

Lincoln County court minutes for 24 January 1832 reference the case of John Nield vs. Thomas Leonard.[46] The minutes state that the sheriff had been ordered by the court to sell a tract of land on which Thomas Leonard lived on the waters of Cane Creek, on which James Rust (had previously?) lived, to satisfy a judgment against Thomas handed down on 16 July 1831. It’s not clear to me what this case was about and not at all clear that Thomas Leonard lost land due to a court judgment not long before his death.

Thomas Leonard’s Will and Probate

Thomas Leonard made his will in Lincoln County on 9 July 1829.[47] The will reads as follows:

Thomas Leonards last will and Testament In the name of God Amen  I, Thomas Leonard of the County of Lincoln State of Tenneſsee do make, ordain and declare, this instrument which is written to be my last will and testament; revoking all others — Imprimis all my debts of which there are but few, and none of magnitude which are to be punctually and speedily paid, and the legacies herein after mentioned, or bequeathed , are to be discharged as soon as circumstance; will permit and in the manner directed

Item 1st To my beloved wife, I give and bequeath, the use interest (word is repeated) and profits with the future increase if there should be any one negroe woman named Hannah, and Moses her husband and Nancy (commonly called Nanny) also all my household furniture belonging to her room, and all the Kitchen furniture to use and dispose of as she may think proper, also my will and desire is that my wife Hannah, Leonard, Shall remain quietly in peaceable poſseſsion, of the room, commonly called hers, during her natural life after the death of my wife Hannah to revert back to my Son Griffith Leonard,

Item 2nd To my son Robert Leonard I give four hundred dollars, which money is to be made, if not in hand, out of my estate, hereafter bequeathed to my son Griffith Leonard,

Item 3rd To my daughter Hannah Moore, wife of Moore fifty and one half acres of land, now in the poſseſsion of said Moore, situated lying and being in the County of Lincoln and State aforesaid, and bounded as follows to wit) Beginning at a White oak my north west corner, running thence east, one hundred and eighty poles to a dogwood and two beeches, a north east corner of my tract thence south fifty poles , thence west and North to the beginning for compliment during her natural life; after her death my will and desire is that my grandson Thomas D Moore, shall have the before mentioned and described tract, to his own proper use and benefit

Item 4th To my son Griffith Leonard, I give and bequeath, the ballance of my land , with the appurtenances thereunto belonging, as per deed for two hundred and thirty acres, after what has been before described or bequeathed to my daughter Hannah Moore, as per bounds before described leaving as per deed one hundred and seventy nine acres, and one half of the same more or leſs also all the household and kitchen furniture belonging to the ballance of my house, and all my farming tools belonging to the plantation, of every description, all the stock of hogs horses and cattle, and Sheep, waggon and gear, still Tubbs and all other properties belonging to me, that is not herein mentioned. If any then Should be, to his own use and benefit; or disposal,

Item 5th If any person being a legal heir, not herein mentioned, my will and desire is that my son Griffith pay him or them, the sum of five dollars each, and lastly I nominate and appoint my Son Griffith Leonard my executor to this my last will and testament, In witness whereof, I have hereunto, set my hand, and affixed my seal, this 9th day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty nine

Signed Sealed and delivered Thos Leonard (seal)

in the presence of Test

Nacy Meeks

John Lovett

Parker Campbell

State of Tenneſssee

Lincoln County Court April Term 1832

The last will and Testament of Thomas Leonard, decd was produced in open Court for probate, and thereupon came Nacy Meeks, and Parker Campbell, two of the subscribing witneſses thereto, who being first duly sworn, agreeably to law, say they heard the said Thomas Leonard acknowledge, the same to be his last will and Testament. and that he was at the time of signing sealing publishing and declaring the same, of sound mind and memory. which is ordered to be so certificed, whereupon came Griffith Leonard the executor named in the will, and took the oath, prescribed by law, and entered into bond & so, this 16th April 1832. given under my hand at office in Fayetteville this

Brice M Garner Clk of P&P Superior

By Peter R Garner DC

Lincoln County court minutes show Nacy Meeks and Parker Campbell proving Thomas Leonard’s will on 16 April 1832 and Griffith Leonard being appointed executor on that date.[48] Thomas Leonard’s tombstone in the Leonard family cemetery records his date of death as 8 April 1832. With his will having been proven in court on 16 April, his son and executor Griffith Leonard returned the inventory of the estate on 16 July 1832, Griffith Leonard returned the estate inventory.[49]

Shortly before his death, on 31 March 1832, Thomas sold his son Griffth enslaved persons Dick and Mack for $1,000.[50] The deed identifies Thomas as Thomas Lenard Senr. of Lincoln County, and is signed Thomas Lenard. Nacy Meeks and Parker Campbell witnessed this deed. Court minutes for 17 April 1832 show the deed proven in court on 16 April 1832 by Nacy Meeks and Parker Campbell, at the same time they proved the will of Thomas Leonard.[51]

Thomas D. Leonard offers a florid, sentimental tribute to his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard in his biography of the Leonards.[52] He states,

Thomas Leonard, [Hannah James’s] husband and her and family constituted a God loving family. Then [sic: he means “when”] they came to Lincoln County in 1806, their children were grown. Three of them were married.

The blessings and sentiments contained in the CXXVIII Psalm, pro[p]riety be applied to their family, also the same blessings are clearly verified in their children, and grandchildren, vis “Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord and walketh in his ways for thou shall eat the labor of thy hand.” Happy shalt thou be and it shall be well with thee, thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the side of thy house: thy children like olive plants round thy table. Behold that thus shalt the name be blest that feareth the Lord.” Can any one of the older and thinking ones of their descendants say that these promises does [sic] not apply to the family of Thomas and Hannah Leonard? Has not their example been a light to us that knew them? Have we not remembered their teachings a thousand times through our lives? Does not thee by precept and example of the parents extend to the children to the third fourth generation of them that love the Lord, as well as to those that hate him. I love to know that I have descended from such noble spirits. I love to know that their offspring have inherited their noble disposition and have been guided by their teachings.”

Thomas’s wife Hannah lived ten years following his death, dying 3 November 1842 at the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg. Thomas and Hannah are buried together in the family cemetery behind the site of the old house. Her tombstone records her date of birth as 2 November 1752.[53] I’ll have more to say about Hannah in future when I trace the James family line.

A Brief Postscript

A little postscript about a source that is sometimes cited in discussions of Thomas Leonard, which has incorrect information about his life during the American Revolution. In a letter dated 4 July 1874, William Simpson, a grandson of Thomas Leonard’s brother-in-law Harmon Cummings, states that Thomas Leonard was a Hessian soldier whom Harmon Cummings took prisoner in Trenton, New Jersey, during the Revolutionary War.[54] Simpson, who was living in Jacksonville, Florida, when he wrote this letter, was a son of Mary Cummings and Thomas Simpson; Mary was a daughter of Harmon Cummings and Mary James, a sister of Hannah James Leonard.

It’s not clear to me whether Harmon Cummings himself was the source of the incorrect information that Thomas Leonard was a Hessian soldier held prisoner at Trenton, New Jersey, during the Revolution, or whether that information is something his grandson William Simpson acquired somewhere. As we’ve seen, there’s solid documentation that Thomas Leonard was the son of a British soldier, Robert Leonard, who came to Maryland after 1750 to help guard the frontier of western Maryland as the tensions that led to the French and Indian War began to develop. As the linked posting also shows, there’s equally solid documentation showing that Thomas was a member of the first military company organized for the Revolutionary war in Hagerstown, Maryland, on 6 January 1776.

Thomas Leonard was neither German (Hessian) nor a hireling for the British Army during the Revolution. There actually was a Thomas Leonard serving as a Loyalist major for the British who was taken prisoner at Trenton, New Jersey, when Harmon Cummings was there during the Revolution. But this is an entirely different man than Thomas, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard. This Thomas was born in 1708 in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and was a son of either Nathaniel or Thomas Leonard.[55]

In my next posting, I’ll provide some brief information about the children of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James.

[1] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[2] See J. Lester Wolfe, “Thomas Leonard,” in Heritage of Lincoln County, Tennessee, ed. Lincoln County Heritage Book Committee (Waynesville, North Carolina: County Heritage, 2005), p. 414; and Angie May Gill Wallace, “History of Marshall County Families,” Marshall Gazette (19 September 1947), p. 3. The article states that it was written for the Robert Lewis chapter of DAR.

[3] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Deed Bk. A, pp. 43-4.

[4] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. I & J, p. 278.

[5] “In the Ground Eighty Years, Fayetteville [Tennessee] Observer (8 November 1894), p. 2, col. 3. The article was originally published in the Petersburg Enterprise.

[6] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Deed Bk. A, pp. 43-4.

[7] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Land Entries Series 2, 1817-1823, p. 77.

[8] Ibid., p. 132.

[9] See Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. A, pp. 129-130.

[10] Goodspeed’s History of Lincoln County, Tennessee (Nashville: Goodspeed, 1886; repr. Columbia, Tennessee: Woodward & Stinson, 1972), p. 768.

[11] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. February 1810-1810, pp. 9-10, 15-6.

[12] Marshall County Historical Quarterly 10,1 (Spring 1979).

[13] Wallace, “History of Marshall County Families.”

[14] Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975),

[15] John Trotwood Moore and Austin P. Foster, Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923, vol. 3 (Chicago: S.S. Clarke, 1923), pp. 238-241.

[16] I’m dubious about the claim of this biography that the Leonard house was built in 1797. I suspect that the rambling old farmhouse that was erected at some point in the 19th century was on the site of and may have incorporated an earlier house that may have dated to the early 19th century when the Leonards arrived on Cane Creek. That original house would likely have been a log cabin.

[17] In a telephone conversation with me on 16 December 1996, Jackie Leonard of Athens, Alabama, told me that Leonard homestead land was owned in 1996 by Tommy Wilson, owner of a horse farm, Ridge Vale Farms, whose address was Rt. 1, Petersburg, TN 37144.

[18] See also Berry C. Williams, “A Brief History of Lincoln County,” Fayetteville Observer (16 January 1951), unpaginated 100th anniversary edition. See also Goodspeed’s History of Lincoln County, Tennessee, p. 769.

[19] Helen C. and Timothy R. Marsh, Early Unpublished Court Records of Lincoln County, Tennessee (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1993), p. 126.

[20] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. February 1810-1810), p. 9.

[21] “Muster Roll — War of 1812,” Lincoln County, Tennessee, Pioneers 24,1 (January 1995), pp. 27-8.

[22] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. M, p. 33. On Patrick Norris, who is part of my Calhoun family kinship network in Abbeville and Pendleton District, see this previous posting. Patrick was the son of Robert Norris and Jean/Jane Ewing, and married Rachel Calhoun, daughter of William and Agnes Calhoun. On Ezekiel Pickens, son of Andrew Pickens and Rebecca Calhoun and a member of my Calhoun-Pickens kinship network, see this previous posting.

[23] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. February 1811-February 1812, p. 57.

[24] Ibid., pp. 120-1.

[25] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. March 1814-November 1816, p. 13.

[26] Ibid., pp. 36-7.

[27] Ibid., p. 21.

[28] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards.”

[29] Goodspeed’s History of Lincoln County, Tennessee, p. 769.

[30] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. March 1814-November 1816, p. 101

[31] Ibid., p. 147.

[32] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Will Bk. March 1809-April 1824, p. 108; and see Frances T. Ingmire, Lincoln County, Tennessee, Wills, Inventories, and Miscellaneous, March 1809-April 1824 (St. Louis, 1984), p. 30.

[33] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. March 1814-November 1816, p. 188.

[34] Ibid., pp. 190-2.

[35] Ibid., p. 193.

[36] Ibid., p. 345.

[37] Tennessee Plats and Surveys 1817-1822, p. 77.

[38] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. October 1819-July 1823, pp. 21-3

[39] 1820 federal census, Lincoln County, Tennessee, p. 12 (119).

[40] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Deed Bk. B, pp. 226-8. On 31 December 1832, Colin Campbell sold the 135-acre tract to his nephew Griffith James Leonard, Thomas’s son: see Lincoln County, Tennessee, Deed Bk. I, pp. 251-2. See also North Carolina-Tennessee Land Grant Bk. S, p. 868, warrant no. 3847.

[41] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. October 1819-July 1823, p. 604.

[42] 1830 federal census, Lincoln County, Tennessee, p. 178.

[43] Photos of the tombstone by Jimmy Trout are at the Find a Grave memorial page of Griffith J. Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Louise Jenkins.

[44] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards.”

[45] A Wallace, “History of Marshall County Families.”

[46] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. April 1830-October 1833, p. 316.

[47] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Will Bk. 1, 1827-1850, pp. 79-80. WPA workers Katherine Rhea and Mary Earle Parks published a transcript of the will in 1936: see Will Books, 1810-1850, Lincoln County, Tennessee (WPA Historical Records Project, 1936), pp. 44-5.

[48] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. April 1830-October 1833, p. 329.

[49] Ibid., p. 368.

[50] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Deed Bk. I, p. 236.

[51] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. April 1830-October 1833, p. 332.

[52] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards.”

[53] See the Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah James Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B., maintained by LookingforFamily, with tombstone photos by JimmyTrout. This site incorrectly names her Hannah Leona James Leonard. I’ve seen no documents giving Hannah James a middle name, and suspect that the Leona is a misreading of part of her name on her tombstone: Hannah LEONArd.

[54] I have a transcript of William Simpson’s letter sent to me in May 2008 by Cummings researcher Stephen Ehat, who told me that Mary Ann McDonald of Lyman, Wyoming, had a photocopy of the original letter. I don’t have information about who might own the original.

[55] See Clifford Neal Smith, Muster Rolls and Prisoner of War Lists in American and Archival Collections Pertaining to the German Mercenary Troops (DeKalb, Illinois: Westland, 1974, pp. 91-2.

Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard: Maryland Beginnings

Or, Subtitled: “Formerly Sergeant in the war of 1753 Genl. Washinton’s first Ridgiment and in the Late American war with Britain in the Maryland Ridgiment as Sergeant till killd. in Genl. Gatises Defiat”

Date of Birth

The dates of birth and death of Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, are recorded on his tombstone in the Leonard family cemetery north of Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee. The cemetery, which I visited in February 2008, is on the land Thomas Leonard bought in then Lincoln, now Marshall County, in September 1809 when he moved his family from Pendleton District, South Carolina, to Tennessee. The family lived on this land about 2½ miles north of Petersburg, the Marshall County seat, at what’s now called Leonard Bluff on Liberty Valley Road. The cemetery is located behind the site of an old family house known as the Leonard homestead that stood up to the middle of the 20th century but was no longer there by the 1990s.[1] I’ll discuss this house in more detail later. (To read the continuation of this posting, click the numeral 2 below.)

The Leonard family cemetery in which Thomas Leonard and wife Hannah James Leonard are buried is said by family tradition to date to the generation of Thomas’ mother Honor Pritchard Leonard, who accompanied the family from South Carolina to Tennessee and is thought by descendants to have died after 1810. According to researcher Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, Honor is buried in the cemetery in an unmarked grave.[2] When I visited the cemetery in 2008, I noted a row of headstones too weathered to read, in a shape and style that suggested to me that these stones might date from the early 19th century. By 2008, the tombstones of Thomas and wife Hannah were also impossible for me to read. Thomas’ Find a Grave memorial page includes a photo of his stone that is fairly clear and allows the inscription to be made out.[3] See the top of this posting for a digital image.

It reads:

Thomas Leonard

Born

Oct. 15 1752

Died

April 8 1832

The tombstones of Thomas and wife Hannah are matching stones that appear to date from not long after Hannah’s death on 3 November 1842. I suspect, but do not know for certain, that they were erected by Thomas and Hannah’s son Griffith James Leonard (1787-1864), who inherited the family homeplace in his father’s will, and who lived there up to his death. Griffith and his wife are buried in the family cemetery along with several generations of their descendants and other family members.

As a previous posting notes, in his 1883 manuscript entitled “Biography of the Leonards,” Thomas Leonard’s grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard (1810-1888), a son of Thomas and Hannah Leonard’s son Robert (1777-1844), states that Thomas Leonard’s father Robert Leonard (bef. 1730-1780) was “a soldier of the English Army” who came to Maryland — as a British soldier — around 1750.[4] As the linked posting also tells you (and see here), Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s manuscript states as well that he knew his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard personally, and that he grew up in Tennessee close to them before his family moved to nearby Madison County, Alabama, about 1818. His information on the early generations of the Leonard family rests on what his grandparents shared with him and other family members.

Place of Birth

Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s manuscript does not state a place of birth for his grandfather Thomas Leonard, but does indicate that Thomas married wife Hannah James “of Maryland” about 1775, and the family then lived in Maryland before moving to South Carolina in 1786. As the previously linked posting also says, a number of records place Thomas Leonard’s father Robert at Fort Frederick some eighteen miles west of Hagerstown in the period leading up to the Revolution. Historian Henry Peden notes that Robert Leonard was stationed at Fort Frederick by August 1757, and that the account book of Colonel John Dagworthy, field commander at Fort Frederick in 1756, shows Robert Leonard paid for service by Dagworthy on 7 March 1763.[5] A document dated 8 February 1755 shows Robert Leonard indenturing his son William on that date to a local farmer and identifying himself as a soldier serving under Captain “Dagurthey.”[6]

These records suggest that when Robert Leonard’s son Thomas was born on 15 October 1752, he was very likely born in the part of Frederick County, Maryland, that would become Washington County in September 1776. Fort Frederick, where we can definitely place Thomas Leonard’s father Robert by 1757, was constructed in 1756 west of Hagerstown, as noted above, in what’s now Washington County.  Its construction was financed by Joseph Chapline of Sharpsburg in Washington County, who had ties to Griffith James, who lived at Sharpsburg and whose daughter Hannah Thomas Leonard married about 1775.[7] The likelihood that Thomas Leonard was born in Hagerstown in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland, seems to me very strong.[8]

Revolutionary Service, Hagerstown, Maryland, Militia

Previously, I’ve also noted that Thomas Leonard appears in a list of members of the first military company organized for the Revolutionary war in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776.[9] Thomas J. Scharf, whose History of Western Maryland including Frederick and Washington Counties I’ve just footnoted, transcribes a declaration the militia members signed on this date in January, noting that the company was being formed to serve the Council of Safety of Maryland. As the linked posting notes, in addition to Thomas Leonard, those signing included Richard Moore, whose father Daniel Moore lived in Sharpsburg next to a Dean family intermarried with the family of Griffith James, as well as brothers Samuel and Thomas Dean.[10] Samuel Dean was Thomas Leonard’s brother-in-law. He married Gwendolyn James, sister of Thomas’ wife Hannah James, in 1773. This militia unit was under the command of Joseph Chapline, the founder of Sharpsburg, who was connected to Thomas Leonard’s father-in-law Griffith James from the time Griffith James first appears in Sharpsburg records in September 1763.[11]

Sharpsburg is a bit over thirteen miles south of Hagerstown, which was originally known as Elizabethtown. Scharf is citing minutes of the Elizabethtown District Committee of Observation for 5 June 1776, which say that on that date, a list was presented to the committee compiled on 6 January 1776 of a group of men who signed their names to a resolution to form a militia per a resolution of the Provincial Convention held at Annapolis on 26 July 1775.[12] Thomas Leonard’s sister Mary Ann married Colin Campbell at Hagerstown on 27 July 1780, and Hannah James’s sister Mary James married Harmon Cummings on 7 September 1779 at Hagerstown.[13] Both couples were married by Reverend George Mitchell of Hagerstown.[14]

We can, then, confidently place Thomas Leonard in a militia company organized for Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in January 1776, in the year after it’s thought he married Hannah James of nearby Sharpsburg. In the same militia company was Samuel Dean, who married Hannah’s sister Gwendolyn in 1773. Signing next to Thomas Leonard in the declaration establishing this militia was Richard Moore, who had close ties to the family of Griffith James into which Thomas Leonard and Samuel Dean married. And leading the militia unit was Joseph Chapline, the founder of Sharpsburg with ties to Griffith James. In September 1779, another sister of Hannah and Gwendolyn James, their sister Mary, married Harmon Cummings in Hagerstown, and in July 1780, Thomas Leonard’s sister Mary Ann married Colin Campbell in Hagerstown. Both of these couples were married by Rev. George Mitchell, a Hagerstown pastor.

There are multiple pointers to Hagerstown or nearby Sharpsburg as the place in which Thomas Leonard lived from the time he married Hannah James about 1775, Hagerstown also being his probable place of birth…. Then in or just before 1786, as noted above, Thomas Leonard and wife Hannah moved their family to Pendleton District, South Carolina. This is a move that Thomas and Hannah made along with her sister Gwendolyn and husband Samuel Dean and her sister Mary and husband Harmon Cummings. The tradition of these families is that they moved to South Carolina from Washington County, Maryland.[15]

Dean Family’s Connections to Cumberland (and Bedford) County, Pennsylvania

But researcher Beverly Dean Peoples, a descendant of Samuel Dean and Gwenny James, finds a pattern of back-and-forth movement of some of her Dean ancestors from Washington County, Maryland to Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and its daughter counties of Bedford and Huntingdon in the 1770s.[16] Beverly states, “[P]rior to the move to SC with his wife’s family, Samuel [Dean] had tried to establish a home in the now Huntingdon County, PA area with his brothers Thomas, William and John.” Land records place Samuel in Huntingdon’s parent county of Bedford in 1774, and histories of the area state that he began building a house in Bedford County in 1773. Beverly thinks that Samuel’s brother William first claimed land in Cumberland County in 1766 before Bedford was split from Cumberland in 1771, with Huntingdon then being formed from Bedford in 1787.

Since Samuel Dean is in the January 1776 Hagerstown militia list with his brother-in-law Thomas Leonard, he evidently had not moved his family permanently from Maryland to Pennsylvania in these years. Beverly notes that the reported birthplaces of the children of Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James suggest that the family may have been coming and going in the 1770s between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and that as the Dean brothers were considering new locations for their families in Pennsylvania, they may have left their wives in Washington County for much of the time when they were sojourning in Pennsylvania, where skirmishes between native peoples and settlers of European descent were creating dangers for incoming settlers. Beverly Peoples notes that Samuel returned to Washington County from Pennsylvania for good in 1784, selling his land in Pennsylvania, and at this point, he joined with his brothers-in-law in their plan to move to South Carolina.

I mention Beverly’s well-researched findings about the history of the Dean family during this period because if Thomas Leonard’s brother-in-law Samuel Dean was moving with his brothers between Washington County, Maryland, and Cumberland (or Bedford) County, Pennsylvania, in the 1770s and early 1780s, it seems to me worth asking if Thomas Leonard might have been making similar moves. We know that he was definitely in the Hagerstown militia in 1776, and he begins appearing in Pendleton District, South Carolina, records in 1786. So the time frame in which I’m suggesting that Thomas might have spent some time in Cumberland or Bedford Counties, Pennsylvania, would be in that decade, 1776-1786.

In fact, I have not found any clear records showing this Thomas Leonard in Cumberland or Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in that decade. However, I want to point to a record I shared in a previous posting. In the posting I’ve just linked, I shared a digital image of a 12 September 1800 power of attorney given by Thomas, his brother Robert, their mother Honor, and their brother-in-law Colin Campbell to James Irwin of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. I’ve reposted that image here. As the linked posting explains, this document passed down among descendants of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James and in 1972 was in the possession of descendant Leonard Wilson of Petersburg, Tennessee. I have not found this power of attorney recorded in court records of Pendleton District, South Carolina, or Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

September 1800 Power of Attorney of Leonard Heirs to James Irwin of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

As you’ll see as you look at the image of this power of attorney, what it says is not easy to make out. Part of the document is torn away, and some words defeat me as I try to read them. The following transcript is my best attempt at reading this document:

The Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, location of James Irwin leaps out at me, of course, as I read this document in conjunction with Beverly People’s research about her Dean family members of Washington County, Maryland, before Samuel Dean and wife Gwendolyn James moved in 1786 with Thomas Leonard and Hannah James to Pendleton District, South Carolina. Who was James Irwin, and how were the Leonard family members giving him this power of attorney in 1800 connected to him?

In particular, why were they asking him to recover pay due to Robert Leonard for Robert’s service in the French and Indian War and then in the Revolution? This document states that Robert served as a sergeant in George Washington’s first regiment in the “war of 1753.” I think that “war of 1753” is a reference to what is now conventionally called the French and Indian War: Robert’s heirs are not stating that he served under Washington in the year 1753 specifically but in the war that began with hostilities building in 1753 and open warfare commencing in 1754.

As noted previously, we have documentary evidence that Robert Leonard was serving as a British soldier under John Dagworthy in western Maryland by February 1755. In 1756, construction began on Fort Frederick near Hagerstown, with construction completed the following year.[17] As stated above, we know from documentary evidence that Robert Leonard was serving under Dagworthy at Fort Frederick in 1757.[18] Dagworthy’s troops were at Fort Cumberland on the Potomac west of Fort Frederick prior to their move to Fort Frederick. Virginia took possession of Fort Cumberland in the fall of 1755 and this placed Dagworthy on what historian Eric Sterner calls a “collision course” with Washington.[19] Washington was considered to be in charge of the fort, but Dagworthy saw him as a young upstart and refused to submit to his command.

As construction began on Fort Frederick in July 1756, Washington visited the fort, and in June 1758, he returned to the fort during his campaign to capture Fort Duquesne. All during these years, with documentary evidence that Dagworthy paid Robert Leonard for service in March 1763,[20] there was interaction, usually hostile on the side of Dagworthy, between Robert Leonard’s commander John Dagworthy and George Washington. And there were questions about who was in command of whom, so that confusion about whether Robert Leonard was serving under Dagworthy or Washington for part of this period of time is understandable.

The 1800 power of attorney goes on to state that Robert Leonard then served during the Revolution as a sergeant and was killed in the defeat of General Gates. Horatio Gates was defeated by the British at the battle of Camden in South Carolina in August 1780.

And to return to the question of who James Irwin was and why the heirs of Robert Leonard gave him power of attorney in 1800 to recover pay due to Robert for his service in these two wars: there were multiple James Irwins living in Cumberland County in the period 1780-1800. I’ve entertained the idea that a man of this name who was a captain in the 5th company of Cumberland County’s 2nd militia battalion in 1780 is the James Irwin to whom the Leonard heirs gave power of attorney in 1800.[21] I suggest this possibility  because I suspect that the James Irwin of the power of attorney had some military background and ties, if the Leonard heirs were asking him to retrieve back pay for Robert Leonard’s military service.

But I honestly don’t know enough about the Irwin families in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in this period to be certain that this James is the man named in the Leonard power of attorney. I have also entertained the possibility that a Thomas Leonard who was serving as a lieutenant in a Cumberland County militia unit under Captain William Black is Thomas, son of Robert and Honor, but I suspect this was an entirely different Thomas Leonard.[22] A Thomas Leonard born in New Jersey in 1753 married Esther Cookson in Cumberland County in 1781, with his affidavit given as he claimed a Revolutionary pension stating that he moved to Cumberland County in 1780 after having given Revolutionary service in New Jersey.[23] I think it’s highly likely he was the man who was a lieutenant in a Cumberland County militia unit in 1780.

I do, however, think it’s well worth noting that the heirs of Robert Leonard gave power of attorney to a James Irwin of Cumberland County in 1800, asking him to recover pay due to Robert for Revolutionary service. I think this is well worth noting when we know from Beverly Dean’s exhaustive research on the family of Thomas Leonard’s brother-in-law Samuel Dean that Samuel and his brothers were trekking back and forth between Washington County, Maryland, and Cumberland/Bedford Counties, Pennsylvania, in the 1770s and first part of the 1780s.

By 9 February 1786, Thomas Leonard with wife Hannah James had moved, along with Samuel Dean and wife Gwendolyn James, Harmon Cummings and wife Mary James, and Colin Campbell and wife Mary Ann Leonard, from Washington County, Maryland, to Pendleton District, South Carolina. In my next posting, I’ll pick up the story of Thomas Leonard’s life from the start of his years in South Carolina.

[1] In a telephone conversation with me on 16 December 1996, Jackie Leonard of Athens, Alabama, told me that Leonard homestead land was owned in 1996 by Tommy Wilson, owner of a horse farm, Ridge Vale Farms, whose address was Rt. 1, Petersburg, TN 37144.

[2] See Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975), and “Thomas Leonard Family Graveyard,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 10,1 (spring 1979), both reporting a transcription of the cemetery headstones made by Baxter on 28 January 1968.

[3] See Find a Grave memorial page for Thomas Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B., maintained by LookingForFamily, with a tombstone photo by Jimmy Trout.

[4] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[5] Henry C. Peden Jr., Marylanders and Delawareans in the French and Indian War 1756-1763 (Lewes, Delaware: Colonial Roots, 2004).

[6] Frederick County, Maryland, Land Record Bk. E, pp. 659-660.

[7] See Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 798-802, stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James. On Joseph Chapline and the founding of Sharpsburg, see Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972), pp. 8f; Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); and Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4.

[8] The one child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James who was still living when the 1880 federal census was taken was their youngest child Hannah (1795-1886), widow of William Depriest Moore. Hannah was living in 1880 in Marshall County, Tennessee, with her daughter Angelina and Angelina’s husband Joseph John Skidmore Gill. On the 1880 census, Hannah reported the birthplace of both of her parents as Maryland: see 1880 federal census, Marshall County, Tennessee, 4th civil district p. 347 C (ED 135, dwelling 88/family 101; 7 June).

[9] See J. Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland: Being a History of Frederick, Montgomery, Carroll, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett Counties, etc., vol. 2 (Philadelphia: L.H. Everts, 1882), pp. 1189-1190.

[10] The Dean home tract, Hunting the Hare, and Griffith James’ home tract, Pough, were across from each other on present-day Burnside Bridge Road close to its intersection with present-day Mills Road just outside Sharpsburg to the southeast. I visited this area in August 2007 and took photos of both pieces of land.

[11] See Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 798-802, stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James. On Joseph Chapline and the founding of Sharpsburg, see Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972), pp. 8f; Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); and Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4.

[12] See Henry C. Peden Jr., Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland 1776-1783 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line, 1998), p. 210, citing “Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for Elizabeth Town District [Washington County],” Maryland Historical Magazine 12 (1917), p. 270; and Williams, A History of Washington County, p. 1189.

[13] See Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Marriages 1777-1804 (1949), p. 226; and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records, vol. 2 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1928; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967), p. 522.

[14] In a 3 March 2006 email to me, researcher Barbara Horne told me that she lived in Washington County and believed that Mitchell was a Reformed minister.

[15] See Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing Service, 2001).

[16] See “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children” at Rootsweb.

[17] See Debra R. Boender, “Fort Frederick (Maryland,” in Colonial Wars of North America, 1512-1763: An Encyclopedia, ed. Alan Gallay (Oxford: Routledge, 1996), pp. 236-7;“Frederick, Fort,” in Encyclopedia of the French and Indian War in North America, 1754-1763, ed. Donald I. Stoelzel (Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books, 2008), p. 160; Maryland Park Service, “Fort Frederick State Park History,” at website of  Maryland Department of Natural Resources; and “Fort Frederick,” in Forts of the United States: An  Historical Dictionary, 16th Through 19th Centuries, ed. Bud Hannings (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006), p. 193.

[18] See supra, n. 5.

[19] Eric Sterner, “General John Dagworthy: George Washington’s Forgotten American Rival,” Journal of the American Revolution (online; 11 October 2017). See also George W. Marshall, Memoir of Brigadier-General John Dagworthy of the Revolutionary War (Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1895), pp. 13-15; “General John Dagworthy,” in Biographical and Genealogical History of the State of Delaware, vol. 1 (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: J.M. Runk, 1899), pp. 105-6; “Dagworthy Controversy,” at The Ladies of Mount Vernon’s George Washington’s Mount Vernon website; and “John Dagworthy” at Wikipedia.

[20] See supra, n. 5.

[21] Pennsylvania State Archives, “Cumberland County Revolutionary War Militia,” online at the website of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. On 18 October 1835 in Butler County, Ohio, a James Irwin deposed as he applied for a Revolutionary pension, stating that he was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, on 16 October 1758. This is not the James Irwin who signed the 1800 Leonard power of attorney. The signature of this James Irwin on his pension affidavit does not match the signature of James Irwin of the power of attorney: see NARA, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, compiled ca. 1800 – ca. 1912, documenting the period ca. 1775 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of James Irwin, Pennsylvania, S9743, available digitally at Fold3. In February 1833, James Irwin deposed in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, which was formed from Cumberland County, as he applied for a Revolutionary pension. The signature of this James on his affidavit does not match that of the James of the 1800 power of attorney: see ibid., file of James Irwin, Pennsylvania, W3689, available digitally at Fold3.

[22] Pennsylvania Archives, fifth series, vol. 6, ed. Thomas Lynch Montgomery (Harrisburg: Harrisburg Publishing Company, 1906), p. 340.

[23] NARA, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, compiled ca. 1800 – ca. 1912, documenting the period ca. 1775 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of Thomas and Esther Leonard, available digitally at Fold3. See also S. Falsey, “Sgt. Thomas Leonard,” at Brad Leonard’s Leonard Genealogy – Solomons Leonard of Duxbury and Bridgewater.

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Aletha R. Leonard (abt. 1803 – abt. 1845), Wife of James G. Birdwell

Or, Subtitled: “That James Birdwell and Lethe Birdwell his wife have both departed this life”

With my last posting about James Lauderdale (abt. 1707 – 1796/7), I’ve drawn to a close, for now at least, my series of postings on my Lauderdale family line. With this posting, I’m inaugurating a new series about another of my ancestral lines, one that ties into the Lauderdale line through the marriage of Thomas Lewis Leonard and Sarah M. Lauderdale. Two charts at my initial posting in my Lauderdale series show my descent from that marriage through Thomas and Sarah’s daughter Aletha R. Leonard (abt. 1803 – abt. 1845), who married James G. Birdwell, son of Moses Birdwell about 1819 in Limestone County, Alabama. (To read the rest of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

I’m now going to turn my attention to the Leonard ancestral line. I’m beginning my series on that family line by talking about Aletha Leonard. In addition to the postings I’ve linked in the paragraph above, you can find information about Aletha in two postings I’ve made previously about her husband James G. Birdwell:

James G. Birdwell (1795-1849): Georgia and Alabama Years

James G. Birdwell (1795-1849): Louisiana Years

First a note about Aletha’s given name: it appears in various documents as Aletha, Alitha, Lethe, and Leatha, the latter two renditions obviously nicknames. According to E.G. Withycombe, the given name Alethea or Alithea is the English transliteration of the Greek word for “truth,” and was used as a given name in England from the 17th century.[1] Withycombe notes that the name has been spelled in various ways in the centuries in which it’s been used as a female surname in the British Isles and elsewhere. 

George R. Stewart’s American Given Names has essentially the same information, though Stewart says, curiously, that Alethea “may not actually exist in the American name-pool.”[2] If Stewart means to say that this specific spelling — Alethea — hasn’t been common in the US, he might be correct. But with the spelling Aletha, this name has frequently been used in the US as a female given name: the 1850 federal census lists 342 Alethas (a few with the census taker spelling the name Eletha). This given name has been far from uncommon in American families. Aletha Leonard Birdwell’s grandmother Milbury Mauldin Lauderdale had a sister Frances (husband Burgess Reeves) who named a daughter Aletha, and in that family line, the given name passes down repeatedly. I suspect that the name Aletha came to Thomas Lewis Leonard and wife Sarah M. Lauderdale, in fact, from Sarah’s aunt Frances Mauldin Reeves. Her Aletha was born in 1785, and this family lived in Pendleton District, South Carolina, as did Thomas and Sarah for the first years of their marriage, in which their daughter Aletha, their oldest child, was born.

In the first of the two postings about James G. Birdwell for which I’ve provided links above, I cite an 1883 manuscript written by a first cousin of Aletha Leonard Birdwell’s father Thomas Lewis Leonard, which contains a piece of biographical information about James Birdwell and wife Aletha Leonard. As that posting explains, the primary author of this manuscript, which is entitled “Biography of the Leonards,” was Thomas Dunlap Leonard (1810-1888), a son of Robert Leonard, a brother of Aletha’s father Thomas Lewis Leonard. About James Birdwell and Aletha Leonard, Thomas Dunlap Leonard has the following to say:

Thomas and Sally Leonard’s oldest child, a daughter named Alitha was born in So Carolina about the year 1803. She was married to James Birdwell in Limestone Co Al, a farmer. He was a sober, steady man of good habits and of good family. Moses Birdwell, his father, I was well acquainted with and know him to be a good citizen. James Birdwell came to Louisiana, east of the Red River in 1840 where he and Alitha died in a few years, having 3 daughters that had md. and 4 younger sons that were not gôrwn [sic] All was of good habits. I have not known anything of then for 40 years.

As the previously linked posting indicates, Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s manuscript was at some point transcribed as a typescript (of 28 single-spaced pages) and that’s the only format in which I’ve read it, as it has circulated for years among Leonard researchers. Thomas completed the manuscript in 1883 while living with his cousin Elizabeth Frances Leonard Norris in Waller County, Texas, and after this, Joseph J. Gill, husband of Thomas’ first cousin Angelina Moore, made some brief additions to the work in 1884. I have been unable to find the whereabouts of the original.

The manuscript notes that Thomas D. Leonard grew up in Tennessee knowing his grandparents Thomas Leonard (1752-1832) and Hannah James (1752-1842), both of whom died after he had grown to manhood. Thomas and Hannah, both native Marylanders, moved their family with Thomas’ mother Honor Pritchard Leonard from South Carolina to Lincoln County, Tennessee, in or about 1808, settling near what is now the town of Petersburg in Marshall County, which was formed from Lincoln. Thomas D. Leonard’s manuscript gathers information about this Leonard family from the generation of the immigrant ancestors Robert Leonard and wife Honor Pritchard, noting that Robert was an English soldier who lived in Maryland and was killed during the Revolution (as a Maryland soldier) at the battle of Camden in August 1780.

It’s clear that much of the information about the immigrant generation of this Leonard family recorded by Thomas D. Leonard comes from oral history his grandfather Thomas Leonard, son of Robert and Honor Leonard, and his grandmother Hannah shared with him. Information on subsequent generations seems to have been carefully compiled by Thomas D. Leonard over the course of his life as he lived among, interacted with and visited, and corresponded with far-flung branches of this Leonard family. In comparing what Thomas D. Leonard says about the various lines of this Leonard family with documented sources, I’ve found that his history is remarkably reliable. He knew the people he was talking about, and knew them well.

In the case of Thomas D. Leonard’s uncle Thomas Lewis Leonard, father of Aletha Leonard Birdwell, not only did Thomas live near his uncle’s family in Tennessee, but Thomas D.’s father Robert Leonard followed his brother Thomas Lewis Leonard in moving from Tennessee to north Alabama, and Thomas D. Leonard knew the family of his uncle Thomas Lewis Leonard in Alabama, too.

As noted in a previous posting, Thomas D. Leonard’s manuscript states that his uncle Thomas and wife Sarah M. Lauderdale moved their family from South Carolina to Tennessee in 1806. I find this family in the records of Pendleton District, South Carolina, where Thomas and Sarah’s daughter Aletha was born about 1803, up to 1808. Immediately following the Revolution, the widowed mother of the Leonard family, Honor Pritchard Leonard, moved from Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, to Pendleton District, South Carolina, with her sons, including Thomas Leonard (1752-1832) and wife Hannah James. As we’ve seen, in about 1800 in Pendleton District, Thomas and Hannah’s son Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1780), father of Aletha Leonard, married Sarah M. Lauderdale, a daughter of John Lauderdale and Milbury Mauldin, who was born in Wilkes County, Georgia. Thomas D. Leonard’s manuscript notes that after moving from South Carolina to Tennessee, in 1818 Thomas Lewis Leonard then moved his family to Limestone County, Alabama.

Aletha Leonard spent the first few years of her life, then, living in Pendleton District, South Carolina, then spent her girlhood in what was then Lincoln County, Tennessee, and later Marshall County, and during her teen years, her father moved the family from Tennessee to Limestone County, Alabama, where Aletha married James G. Birdwell prior to 8 January 1820.

Aletha and husband James Birdwell lived the first several years of their married life in Limestone County, having four children born to them in that county: Elvira, Hannah, John B., and Dewitt Clinton Birdwell. In 1830, James and Aletha moved their family to Jackson County, Alabama, which had been created from the Cherokee Cession in 1819 and joins Madison County on the east. During the years they spent in Jackson County from 1831-6, on 9 May 1836 in Limestone County, Aletha’s father Thomas Leonard deeded to James Birdwell for love and affection an enslaved boy named Alexander, nine years old.[3] The deed of gift states that James was Thomas’ son-in-law through marriage to Thomas’ daughter, whose name appears as Leatha here. Thomas proved the deed on the day it was made before John Gammel Lauderdale, a justice of the peace who was his brother-in-law, brother of Thomas’ wife Sarah M. Lauderdale.

While living in Jackson County, James and Aletha Birdwell had three more children born to them: Thomas, Camilla, and Frances C. From 1836 to 1839, James and Aletha Birdwell lived in Marshall County, Alabama, which was formed in 1836 from Blount and Jackson Counties and the Creek Cession. On 30 November 1839 in Marshall County, James and wife Aletha sold to John Kirkland tracts of land that James’ father Moses Birdwell had patented in Jackson County in 1830, which had fallen into Marshall County at that county’s formation.[4] This land appears to have come into James’ hands due to a debt Moses had incurred to his son James. The deed suggests to me that James and Aletha had probably been living on and farming this land since the first part of the 1830s. This document was signed by James and Aletha, James signing and Aletha (who is called Letha R. Birdwell in the deed) making her mark. The deed states that James and Aletha were in Madison County at the time it was made.

It’s clear to me that, with this land sale and their temporary relocation to Madison County, James and Aletha were in the process of moving their family to Louisiana when they sold their Alabama land. As noted previously, Thomas Dunlap Leonard says that the Birdwell family moved to Louisiana from Alabama in 1840. Prior to James and Aletha’s sale of their Marshall County land in November 1839, in May 1839, Aletha’s father Thomas Lewis Leonard had sold his land in Limestone County, Alabama, and moved to Texas, with court records stating that he had “absconded” from the county in May 1839 – that is, he left debts behind. GTT — Gone to Texas— the deed and court books of north Alabama counties often note in this period when planters ruined by the economic bust of the first part of the 1830s upped stakes and went west, frequently leaving unresolved debts .…

As we’ve seen previously, the 1840 federal census confirms Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s information that by 1840 the family of James Birdwell had settled east of the Red River in Louisiana. This census enumerates the family in Natchitoches Parish, which was, in 1840, a large parish in northwest Louisiana through which the Red River ran. As the posting I’ve just linked states, all indicators suggest that James Birdwell settled his family in a portion of Natchitoches Parish that in 1870 became Red River Parish, and whose western boundary is the Red River.

The 1840 census shows James Birdwell’s family with two males 5-9, one male 10-14, and one male 40-49, as well as one female under 5, one female 5-9, two females 15-19, and one female 30-39.[5]  Also in the household are fifteen enslaved persons, one male under 10, two males 10-24, one male 24-36, two males 36-55, three females under 10, two females 10-24, two females 24-36, one female 36-55, and one female 55-100.

I’ve puzzled over this census enumeration of fifteen enslaved persons in James Birdwell’s household in 1840. The 1830 federal census shows him holding no enslaved people. As we’ve seen, in 1836, Aletha’s father deeded an enslaved boy named Alexander to James and Aletha, and the combined succession record of James and Aletha in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, dating from 1850, shows only one enslaved person in the estate, a boy named Benton.

As I’ve thought about the listing of fifteen enslaved persons in James Birdwell’s household in 1840, I’ve realized that the 1830 federal census listing for Thomas Lewis Leonard in Limestone County, Alabama, shows Thomas holding fourteen enslaved persons, with one free man of color also found in the household.[6] Then in 1840, after Thomas Lewis Leonard had arrived in Texas, the 1840 census of the Republic of Texas shows Thomas settled in Houston (later Cherokee) County, Texas, with 1,420 acres of land and fifteen enslaved persons.[7] Thomas Leonard sold his Alabama land in May 1839 and James Birdwell followed suit in November 1839. I suspect the two families went west together, or Thomas preceded his son-in-law James Birdwell and wife Aletha by a few months, settling in what would become Cherokee County where he and wife Sarah M. Lauderdale Leonard would die. For whatever reason, it seems to me that the enslaved persons of Thomas Lewis Leonard were placed in the hands of James Birdwell in Louisiana until both families were fully settled in their new homeplaces.

Thomas D. Leonard states that both James and wife Aletha died “in a few years” after they moved to Louisiana in 1840. As a previous posting notes, James’ death is recorded in the 1850 federal mortality schedule for DeSoto Parish, which states that he died in that parish of cholera in December 1849.[8] On 2 April 1850, Hardin Harville, husband of James and Aletha’s daughter Hannah, filed an appeal to administer the combined succession of James and Aletha in DeSoto Parish.[9] The appeal for administration states that James Birdwell had recently died in DeSoto Parish and that his wife Lethe had predeceased him, dying in Natchitoches Parish.

It appears that Aletha died around the time of the birth of her last child, Mary Ann, who was born in 1845. It’s possible, I think, that Aletha died giving birth to Mary Ann, though I have no information to prove (or disprove) that deduction. Between 1845-8, James then moved to DeSoto Parish, where, as stated above, he died in December 1849.

While James Birdwell and wife Aletha were living in Natchitoches Parish, their last two children, daughters Sophronia and Mary Ann, were born. Thomas Dunlap Leonard says that James and Aletha had four sons. I’ve found documentary evidence of only three sons, and have concluded that Thomas D. Leonard is mistaken in thinking there was a fourth son. James and Aletha’s combined succession file lists six minor children including DeWitt Clinton Birdwell born about 1831) and Thomas (born 18 June 1832). We know that John B. Birdwell (who was born 1 July 1828) was also a son of James Birdwell and Aletha Leonard, because, when his sister Camilla married Ezekiel Samuel Green in Pointe Coupee Parish on 2 January 1853, John wrote a permission note, as head of her family, for Camilla’s marriage on 1 January, stating that Camilla was his sister.

The 1830 federal census shows only one male under five in the household of James and Aletha Birdwell in Limestone County, Alabama.[10] This is clearly their son John. As we’ve just seen, the 1840 census enumerates in James Birdwell’s household in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, two males 5-9, and one male 10-14. These are John B. again with his two younger brothers Dewitt Clinton and Thomas. As far as I can determine, there were no other sons than these three born to James Birdwell and Aletha Leonard.

[1] E.G. Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 12.

[2] George R. Stewart, American Given Names ((New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 54.

[3] Limestone County, Alabama, Deed Bk. 5, p. 107. Thomas Leonard’s surname is given as Linard in this deed.

[4] Marshall County, Alabama, Deed Bk. B, pp. 55-6.

[5] 1840 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 173.

[6] 1830 federal census, Limestone County, Alabama, p. 11B.

[7] See Gifford White, 1840 Census of the Republic of Texas (Austin: Pemberton, 1966), p. 79.

[8] 1850 federal mortality schedule, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, p. 168, l. 11.

[9] DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, succession file no. 159; and DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Succession Bk. D, pp. 643-650.

[10] 1830 federal census, Limestone County, Alabama, p. 42A.

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