David Augustus Leonard

Notes:

Source: Book; The Peirce Family, pages 358-363
Found at:
Middleborough Library ( www.midlib.org )
102 North Main Street
Middleboro, Massachusetts 02346
Tel. 508-946-2470
Reference Librarian (as of Sept. 2004)
Betty Brown: bbrown(at)sailsinc.org


Rev. David A. Leonard
David (the father of Rev. David A. Leonard) was a twin, and his brother born at the same time was christened Jonathan. David (the twin) served as a soldier under Gen. John Winslow at the seizing of the neutral French of Nova Scotia in September, 1755. (For this genealogical account of the Leonards, the writer is indebted to the Hon. Nahum Mitchell's History of Bridgewater, pages 235-37.) The fighting qualities that were exhibited by the lineal descendants of Rev. David A. Leonard and wife during the late war of the great Rebellion, and who distinguished themselves in both the Union and Confederate armies, will by a careful perusal of this genealogy be seen to have been inherited legitimately, both paternally and maternally, as both families from whom the mother descended have, in successive generations, for the full term of two entire centuries, furnished men qualified to "speak with the enemy in the gate," and for more than one century can such be traced in the family of the father.
Rev. David A. Leonard graduated at Brown University in 1792, and was ordained to the work of the ministry Dec. 17, 1794. The services of his ordination were performed at Bridgewater, Mass., when a sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Thomas Baldwin, that was printed. He preached to a Trinitarian Congregational Church on Nantucket from July 1, 1796, to February, 1797, and resided on that island about two years, and during that stay composed some poetry concerning the little village of Siasconset, which composition was printed and well received; indeed, it became quite popular. It was while he resided at Nantucket that he was married, and while he was there and wife in Middleboro (on the 22d of December, 1797), their eldest daughter, Evelyn (afterwards Mrs. Farnham), was born. At. First Mr. Leonard was in religious faith and practice a Calvinistic Baptist, but ere long became, and through life continued to be, a Unitarian. He was baptized by immersion, and tradition says in mid winter, a hole having been cut in the ice for that purpose, and this was perhaps while he was a college student. Preparing for College, he pursued his studies under Abner Alden, A.M. (afterwards Principal of Bristol Academy), but who then probably taught in Raynham, Mass. From Nantucket Mr. Leonard seems to have removed to and commenced housekeeping at Assonet Village, in Freetown, and here he temporarily supplied the pulpit of the First Calvinistic Church and Society, then the only religious congregation in that village or section of the town, if we except a small body of Quakers. While residing at Assonet, tradition informs that he was also engaged in merchandise, and for a time in the occupation of a school teacher. The writer has seen and conversed with some of his scholars. I am, however, from certain circumstances, led to conclude that Mr. Leonard located for a time in New York city, and that he removed his family thither before settling down at Assonet Village, in Freetown; and in this connection it may also be proper to add, that to no one of his descendants do I owe the smallest particle of the information here presented concerning him or them, although having repeatedly addressed letters to several of his children and grandchildren soliciting such information; and but for the kindness of Hon. William P. Thomasson, of Louisville, Ky., (his son-in-law), and Manning Leonard, Esq. of Southbridge, Mass. (his nephew), to both of whom I tender my grateful acknowledgments, this account would have been even more incomplete and meager in facts than it now is. Why the children and grandchildren of Mr. Leonard have so persistently neglected or refused to contribute their part of the proper and desirable information, I leave for the reader to determine, as the writer has come to no definite conclusion on the matter, nor does he at this period and under existing circumstances deem a true knowledge of the reason worth a tithe of the effort that would be required to learn.
Rev. David A. Leonard, while residing in the city of New York, supplied for a time the pulpit of the Gold Street Baptist Church, and also had charge of an academy.
Hon. William Baylies, of Dighton, and afterwards of West Bridgewater, and Hon. Ezekiel Whitman, were classmates with Mr. Leonard in College at Providence, and both many years after bore testimony to the fact that he was a brilliant scholar, successful in all the departments of study, and that he justly acquired some celebrity as a poet.
Among the productions of his mind and pen that were printed and published, we find: "A Sermon delivered at Holmes Harbor, Martha's Vineyard, on the death of Mr. John Holmes, Nov. 1, 1795." "An Oration at Nantucket at the celebration of a Festival of St. John by the Union Lodge, in 1796." "Funeral Sermon in Gold Street Church, New York City, Feb. 16, 1800." "An Oration on the Death of Gen. George Washington, delivered in the First Baptist Meeting-house in New York, Feb. 22, 1800." "Oration at Raynham, Mass., July 5, 1802." "Oration at Dighton, July 4, 1803," and an Oration on the "Acquisition of Louisiana," delivered at Raynham, May 11, 1804. While residing at Assonet Village, in Freetown, he commenced to build a house that he sold before completion to Eben'r Peirce, Esq., his brother-in-law, and for a notice of which see pages 301 and 302 of this book. The premises on which he commenced to erect this house he purchased by deed dated Sept. 13, 1802, and in that document is called "David A. Leonard of Freetown, trader," from which it appears that he had now come to be a store-keeper instead of a minister or a school teacher. That unfinished house and the land, as has before been stated, he sold Sept. 4, 1804, and in June, 1805, removed with his family to Bristol, R.I. As Postmaster of Bristol he served from Jan. 1806 to July 1817, and in August of the last named year left Bristol with his family to remove to what was then the "far West." While residing in Bristol he was not only Postmaster but Secretary of the Bristol Insurance Company, editor and proprietor of the Bristol Republican (a newspaper warmly and actively devoted to the party and administration of Jefferson and Madison), a retail trader or store-keeper, and to the duties of all these stations added the literary labor of revising and preparing for publication a translation he had made of the books of the New Testament, which labor was all lost, being destroyed, together with about six thousand dollars of his property, by the disastrous effects of the equinoctial storm, Sept. 23, 1815, when his store and warehouse standing upon the wharf in Bristol were entirely submerged.
On starting with his family for the west, he set out for Vincennes on the Wabash, then the most important town in Indiana. Disasters on the voyage delayed his passage, until the elements, combining with his ill health, compelled him (in December) to land his goods on a bank of the Ohio river, and take up his abode in a little village called Laconia, situated about one mile and a half from that river, in Boone townships, Harrison County, Indiana, where, on the 22d of July, 1819, he died.
His religious views, while residing in Bristol, R.I., must have undergone a material change, for the proof is very conclusive that he became a Unitarian.

Rev. David A. Leonard and his wife Polly Peirce had:

Evelyn [Leonard], b. Dec. 22, 1797; m. _____ Farnham. Both died some thirty years since. They had two children, a son and a daughter, who died about the time of reaching their majority. I think that the parents died of cholera. The son died of consumption. (Note: Evelyn (born Dec. 22, 1797) received a handsome provision in the will of Maj. P. Hoar, of Middleboro.)

Sarah Hoar [Leonard], b. May 1799. (She was probably named for Sarah, daughter of Robert Hoar, to whom an allusion has been made on page 148 of this book). Mar. Hon. David Merriwether, Governor of New Mexico. He had been a member of the Kentucky Legislature for eight consecutive terms, and after an interim of a few years was elected once or twice more. Their son William is United States Marshal for the District of Kentucky. Their other sons took the side of the Confederacy in the late war of the rebellion. One daughter married Capt. E. Graves, a Captain in the Mexican War.

Mary Prior [Leonard], b. in or about 1800; d. at an early age in the city of New York.

Helen [Leonard], b. in Assonet Village, Freetown, Mass., Feb 7, 1803; m. Dr. C. Hay, and they reside at Warsaw, Illinois. Their second son, Maj. John M. Hay, was private secretary to President Lincoln, and afterwards Charge d'Affaires to Austria, and now Secretary of the Legation to the Court of Spain.

Charlotte [Leonard], b. at Bristol, R.I., in 1806; m. March 25, 1828, Hon. William Poindexter Thomasson, of Louisville, Ky. She d. March 3, 1855. He is a son of Poindexter Thomasson and wife Sarah Dupuy, and born in Henry County, Ky., Oct. 8, 1797, where at the age of sixteen he taught a common school, and volunteered and served as a private soldier in the regiment of Col. Duncan McArthur, in the closing Canadian campaign in the last war with England. Commenced the practice of law in 1817, at Corydon, in Harrison County, Ind., and was elected to the legislature of that state in 1818, and re-elected in 1819. Returned to Kentucky in 1820, and located at Louisville, where he was elected to the State legislature in 1824, and city attorney for eight consecutive terms. Re-elected to legislature in 1842 and again in 1843, and also to a seat in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth Congresses of the nation. In 1857 he removed to Chicago, and in 1860 to the city of New York. In the spring of 1861 left for the seat of war in the 71st Regiment New York militia, and in the ranks of that command fought in the first battle of Bull Run. Their son, Charles L. Thomasson, born Feb. 1, 1829, as a Major, commanding the "Louisville Legion," gave his life a sacrifice in the Union cause at the battle of Chickamangua. Their son Nelson, born Oct. 15, 1839, is a Captain in the 5th Regiment U.S. Army.

Julius Caesar [Leonard; d. 1846

Laura [Leonard]

Charles [Leonard]; is still living, and married.

Unknown [Leonard]

Unknown [Leonard]

Unknown [Leonard]

- End-

David married Mary Peirce in 1797. Mary (daughter of Capt. Job Peirce and Elizabeth Rounsevill) was born on 31 May 1777 in Dartmouth, Bristol Co, Massachusetts, USA; died on 2 Oct 1836. [Group Sheet]

David married Mary Hall. [Group Sheet]