#john-leonard — Public Fediverse posts

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. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

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): 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. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

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.

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) 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.

SIGUE ⬇️

Pero el caso del Harrier solo fue una pieza más dentro de la guerra salvaje entre Pepsi y Coca-Cola.

Porque durante décadas ambas compañías protagonizaron probablemente la rivalidad comercial más agresiva del planeta.

Uno de los movimientos más importantes fue el famoso “Pepsi Challenge” de 1975.

Pepsi instalaba puestos en centros comerciales y hacía pruebas a ciegas.
La gente probaba dos vasos sin saber cuál era cuál.
Y muchísimos elegían Pepsi.

¿Por qué?

Porque Pepsi es ligeramente más dulce que Coca-Cola.
En un simple sorbo rápido, el cerebro suele reaccionar mejor al sabor más dulce.

Aquello fue un golpe psicológico enorme para Coca-Cola.

Tanto que en 1985 la empresa cometió uno de los mayores errores de marketing de todos los tiempos: lanzó la “New Coke”, una fórmula más dulce diseñada para competir directamente con Pepsi.

El público la odió.

Y no porque supiera mal necesariamente, sino porque Coca-Cola había tocado algo emocional.
La marca estaba ligada a recuerdos, costumbres y nostalgia.
La gente sintió que les habían cambiado parte de su identidad cultural.

La reacción fue tan brutal que Coca-Cola tuvo que recuperar la fórmula clásica solo tres meses después.

Y ahí se entendió algo importantísimo:
la gente no compra solo sabor.
Compra recuerdos, símbolos y emociones.

Pepsi, mientras tanto, apostó por otro camino: las celebridades.

Y ahí fue donde empezó a gastar cifras completamente desorbitadas.

En 1984 firmaron con Michael Jackson el contrato publicitario más caro jamás visto hasta entonces: 5 millones de dólares.

Pero el rodaje terminó mal.

Durante una grabación, los fuegos artificiales explotaron antes de tiempo y el pelo de Michael se incendió delante de las cámaras.
Sufrió quemaduras importantes en el cuero cabelludo.

Pepsi acabó pagándole una indemnización de 1,5 millones de dólares, que él donó a un centro médico especializado en quemaduras.

Años después llegó Madonna.

Le pagaron otros 5 millones para usar “Like a Prayer” en un anuncio elegante y aparentemente inocente.
Pero cuando salió el videoclip oficial, lleno de cruces ardiendo y referencias religiosas, estalló el escándalo.

El Vaticano pidió boicots.

Pepsi retiró la campaña inmediatamente.

Madonna se quedó el dinero.

Y probablemente aprendieron que contratar estrellas gigantes también significa heredar sus polémicas.

Luego llegaron Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Pink, Cindy Crawford, David Beckham, Shaquille O’Neal…

Pepsi quería parecer moderna constantemente.
Coca-Cola buscaba parecer eterna.

Esa diferencia explica casi toda su rivalidad.

Y luego está una de las historias más surrealistas de todas:
el momento en que Pepsi tuvo una flota militar soviética.

Sí, ocurrió de verdad.

Durante la Guerra Fría, Pepsi logró entrar en la URSS, convirtiéndose en uno de los primeros productos estadounidenses vendidos allí.
El problema era que el rublo soviético no podía intercambiarse libremente por dólares.

Así que hicieron trueques.

Al principio, Pepsi recibía vodka Stolichnaya como pago.

Pero el negocio creció tanto que el vodka ya no bastaba para compensar la deuda.
Entonces la Unión Soviética ofreció algo completamente absurdo:
submarinos, destructores y barcos militares antiguos.

Durante unos días, Pepsi técnicamente tuvo una de las mayores flotas navales del mundo.

Por supuesto, no iban a bombardear a Coca-Cola con submarinos soviéticos.
Los barcos fueron vendidos rápidamente como chatarra a una empresa noruega para reciclar el metal.

Pero la imagen quedó para la historia:
una marca de refrescos “desarmando” indirectamente a la URSS.

Y quizá lo más increíble de toda esta historia es que muchas de las campañas de Pepsi funcionaban precisamente porque parecían excesivas, ridículas y gigantescas.

Hasta que un día alguien decidió leer la letra pequeña.

▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTkmrAHbwKA

#pepsi #cocacola #historia #marketing #publicidad #años90 #netflix #michaeljackson #madonna #kendalljenner #guerrafría #curiosidades #documental #empresas #historiacuriosa #cultura_pop #pepsistuff #johnleonard #economia #viral

SIGUE ⬇️

Pero el caso del Harrier solo fue una pieza más dentro de la guerra salvaje entre Pepsi y Coca-Cola.

Porque durante décadas ambas compañías protagonizaron probablemente la rivalidad comercial más agresiva del planeta.

Uno de los movimientos más importantes fue el famoso “Pepsi Challenge” de 1975.

Pepsi instalaba puestos en centros comerciales y hacía pruebas a ciegas.
La gente probaba dos vasos sin saber cuál era cuál.
Y muchísimos elegían Pepsi.

¿Por qué?

Porque Pepsi es ligeramente más dulce que Coca-Cola.
En un simple sorbo rápido, el cerebro suele reaccionar mejor al sabor más dulce.

Aquello fue un golpe psicológico enorme para Coca-Cola.

Tanto que en 1985 la empresa cometió uno de los mayores errores de marketing de todos los tiempos: lanzó la “New Coke”, una fórmula más dulce diseñada para competir directamente con Pepsi.

El público la odió.

Y no porque supiera mal necesariamente, sino porque Coca-Cola había tocado algo emocional.
La marca estaba ligada a recuerdos, costumbres y nostalgia.
La gente sintió que les habían cambiado parte de su identidad cultural.

La reacción fue tan brutal que Coca-Cola tuvo que recuperar la fórmula clásica solo tres meses después.

Y ahí se entendió algo importantísimo:
la gente no compra solo sabor.
Compra recuerdos, símbolos y emociones.

Pepsi, mientras tanto, apostó por otro camino: las celebridades.

Y ahí fue donde empezó a gastar cifras completamente desorbitadas.

En 1984 firmaron con Michael Jackson el contrato publicitario más caro jamás visto hasta entonces: 5 millones de dólares.

Pero el rodaje terminó mal.

Durante una grabación, los fuegos artificiales explotaron antes de tiempo y el pelo de Michael se incendió delante de las cámaras.
Sufrió quemaduras importantes en el cuero cabelludo.

Pepsi acabó pagándole una indemnización de 1,5 millones de dólares, que él donó a un centro médico especializado en quemaduras.

Años después llegó Madonna.

Le pagaron otros 5 millones para usar “Like a Prayer” en un anuncio elegante y aparentemente inocente.
Pero cuando salió el videoclip oficial, lleno de cruces ardiendo y referencias religiosas, estalló el escándalo.

El Vaticano pidió boicots.

Pepsi retiró la campaña inmediatamente.

Madonna se quedó el dinero.

Y probablemente aprendieron que contratar estrellas gigantes también significa heredar sus polémicas.

Luego llegaron Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Pink, Cindy Crawford, David Beckham, Shaquille O’Neal…

Pepsi quería parecer moderna constantemente.
Coca-Cola buscaba parecer eterna.

Esa diferencia explica casi toda su rivalidad.

Y luego está una de las historias más surrealistas de todas:
el momento en que Pepsi tuvo una flota militar soviética.

Sí, ocurrió de verdad.

Durante la Guerra Fría, Pepsi logró entrar en la URSS, convirtiéndose en uno de los primeros productos estadounidenses vendidos allí.
El problema era que el rublo soviético no podía intercambiarse libremente por dólares.

Así que hicieron trueques.

Al principio, Pepsi recibía vodka Stolichnaya como pago.

Pero el negocio creció tanto que el vodka ya no bastaba para compensar la deuda.
Entonces la Unión Soviética ofreció algo completamente absurdo:
submarinos, destructores y barcos militares antiguos.

Durante unos días, Pepsi técnicamente tuvo una de las mayores flotas navales del mundo.

Por supuesto, no iban a bombardear a Coca-Cola con submarinos soviéticos.
Los barcos fueron vendidos rápidamente como chatarra a una empresa noruega para reciclar el metal.

Pero la imagen quedó para la historia:
una marca de refrescos “desarmando” indirectamente a la URSS.

Y quizá lo más increíble de toda esta historia es que muchas de las campañas de Pepsi funcionaban precisamente porque parecían excesivas, ridículas y gigantescas.

Hasta que un día alguien decidió leer la letra pequeña.

▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTkmrAHbwKA

#pepsi #cocacola #historia #marketing #publicidad #años90 #netflix #michaeljackson #madonna #kendalljenner #guerrafría #curiosidades #documental #empresas #historiacuriosa #cultura_pop #pepsistuff #johnleonard #economia #viral

Leonard Decision by Red Wings Makes no Sense / DHN https://www.rawchili.com/4769322/ #DetroitHockeyNow #DetroitRedWings #Featured #GrandRapidsGriffins #JohnLeonard #NHL #PatrickKane #ToddMcLellan

Dylan Larkin, John Leonard, Todd McLellan Practice Media | Dec. 15, 2025 https://www.rawchili.com/4735109/ #DetroitRedWings #DetroitRedWings #DylanLarkin #hockey #JohnLeonard #NHL #ToddMcLellan

https://www.lovenhl.com/1482828/ Dylan Larkin, John Leonard, Todd McLellan Practice Media | Dec. 15, 2025 #AtlanticDivision #DetroitRedWings #DylanLarkin #EasternConference #JohnLeonard #ToddMcLellan

#Quotes #Boldness #AWAD #AnuGarg #JohnLeonard

I love this:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold. -John Leonard, critic (25 Feb 1939-2008)

#Quotes #Boldness #AWAD #AnuGarg #JohnLeonard

I love this:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold. -John Leonard, critic (25 Feb 1939-2008)