Family of Thomas * + LEONARD and Lydia *+ WHITE

Husband:	Thomas * + LEONARD (1577-1638)
Wife:	Lydia *+ WHITE (1587- )
Children:	Phillp LEONARD (1612- )
	John LEONARD (1615- )
	John + LEONARD (1615-1676)
	Henry LEONARD (1618- )
	James * Henry LEONARD (1621-1691)
	William LEONARD (1622- )
	Leonard LEONARD (1624- )
	Joan LEONARD (1628- )
	Thomas LEONARD (1628- )
	Margery LEONARD (1630- )
	Sarah LEONARD (1634- )

Husband: Thomas * + LEONARD

Name:	Thomas * + LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Father:	Sampson *+ LEONARD (1544-1615)
Mother:	Margaret +* FIENNES (1540-1611)
Birth	23 May 1577	Chevening, Kent, England1
Death	6 Nov 1638 (age 61)	Taunton, Bristol, MA, US

Wife: Lydia *+ WHITE

Name:	Lydia *+ WHITE
Sex:	Female
Father:	Richard *+ WHITE (1554-1614)
Mother:	Mary * + PLOWDEN (1550- )
Birth	1587	Pontypool, Monmouthshire, Wales, England
Death

Child 1: Phillp LEONARD

Name:	Phillp LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Birth	1612

Child 2: John LEONARD

Name:	John LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Birth	1615

Child 3: John + LEONARD

Name:	John + LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Spouse:	Sarah + HEATH (1620-1711)
Birth	1615	Pontypool, Monmouthshire, Wales, England
Immigration	1639 (age 23-24)	to Springfield, Hampden, MA, US2
Death	20 Mar 1676 (age 60-61)	Springfield, Hampden, MA, US

Child 4: Henry LEONARD

Name:	Henry LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Birth	1618

Child 5: James * Henry LEONARD

Child 6: William LEONARD

Name:	William LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Birth	1622

Child 7: Leonard LEONARD

Name:	Leonard LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Birth	1624

Child 8: Joan LEONARD

Name:	Joan LEONARD
Sex:	Female
Birth	1628

Child 9: Thomas LEONARD

Name:	Thomas LEONARD
Sex:	Male
Birth	1628

Child 10: Margery LEONARD

Name:	Margery LEONARD
Sex:	Female
Birth	1630

Child 11: Sarah LEONARD

Name:	Sarah LEONARD
Sex:	Female
Birth	1634

Note on Husband: Thomas * + LEONARD

What we know of the origins of James Leonard comes from Hannah Leonard Deane, his daughter, who made a deposition to her grandnephew, Zephaniah Leonard, as follows:

 

 

“February 2, 1732-3, Hannah Deane, sister to Capt. James Leonard late of Taunton deceased, gave to the subscriber the following account of her relations, etc –

 

1st Namely her Great Grandfather’s name was Henry Leonard

 

2nd Her own Grandfather’s name was Thomas Leonard

 

3rd Her Father’s name was James Leonard

 

Her Grandmother’s name was White

 

Her Mother’s name was Martin

 

Her Father’s brothers’ names were the eldest, 1. Henry Leonard

 

2. William Leonard

 

3. John Leonard

 

4. Philip Leonard

 

5. Thomas Leonard

 

Margery

 

Joan

 

Sarah

 

James, her Father, lived and died at Taunton, New England

 

Thomas was drowned at Piscataway.

 

Henry went to New Jersey.

 

Philip lived at Marshfield and died at Taunton.

 

William & John never came out of England.

 

Margery married Henry Samson of Ireland, Lt. of the City of Gallaway.

 

Sarah died at New Salem.

 

Joan never came out of England.

 

Said Hannah said her eldest brother was Thomas Leonard, next James, Joseph, Benjamin, John, Uriah.

 

The sisters were Abigail and Rebecca.

 

They all had children save John, who died at about 20 years of age.

 

Henry, who removed to New Jersey, lived and married his wife in Lynn in New England, from thence he removed to Toppsfield, then removed by way of Taunton to the Jerseys. When he was in Taunton, he had seven likely children, namely,

 

The eldest Samuel married Sarah Brooks

 

Nathaniel

 

Thomas married his wife in Virginia

 

Henry

 

John married A. Almy (originally)

 

The daughters, the eldest married Throgmorton; next Mary.

 

So far Hannah Deane, originally Hannah Leonard, gave me an account.

 

 

Zephaniah Leonard”[2]

 

 

Further research does support this deposition.

 

· Records have been found in the Parish Church of Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire of the baptism of Margery, daughter of forgeman Thomas and Elizabeth Leonard, on March 13, 1624/5. This is the earliest record of a child of Thomas and Elizabeth (White) Leonard. Cleobury Mortimer is a small village on the Rea River on which there were forges.[3] Cleobury Mortimer is not far from Kinver on the Stour River, another town noted for early ironworks and Leonards.

 

· Mary Leonard was baptized September 12, 1627, in Cleobury Mortimer and died later that year. She was also the daughter of Thomas Leonard.[4]

 

· William Leonard was baptized there November 30, 1628, and also died later that year. Thomas was listed as “of the forge, fyner” in that record. A fyner was one who is charge of the hearth where cast iron was made malleable.[5] It is possible but undocumented that there was a second child named William who lived and remained in England. There is a marriage record of a William Leonard of Crewcarne, Somersetshire, marrying Mary Coxe on January 22, 1654. There is also the mysterious William Leonard, born about 1680-90 who married Sarah Bolton of Bridgewater, whose origins and relationships are unknown and may have been a later immigrant son or grandson of the William who remained in England.[6]

 

· Philip Leonard’s residence in Marshfield and association with Henry Leonard in 1652 at the ironworks has been documented.[7]

 

· Sarah Leonard, daughter of Thomas, was baptized February 23, 1633/4 in Publow Parish, Somersetshire. Publow was also the site of an ironworks. In 1676, Sarah married Robert Fairbanks in Ireland, and they left Dublin for New Jersey in 1677. When Robert died, Sarah married John Thompson in New Jersey. Her will in 1720 confirms her relationship to Henry and Thomas Leonard of New Jersey and James Leonard of Massachusetts.[8]

 

· Thomas Leonard, son of Thomas, was baptized April 20, 1636, in Publow Parish. When he came to America is unknown, although it is thought that he was in New Haven, CT, before moving to Woodbridge, NJ, and that his wife’s name was Katherine. We do not know if they had children or if Thomas was engaged in ironworking trades.[9] His will mentions wife Katherine and his kinsman Halick Codriack, but no children, save a legacy of a 2-year-old heifer to “the boy that now liveth with me” called Thomas Cromwell.

 

 

From the above, we know that the parents of Henry, James, Philip, and Thomas were Thomas Leonard and Elizabeth White. We know that Thomas was a skilled forgeman and fyner and probably trained some or all of his sons in that skill. We know that Thomas moved around in the application of his skill, spending 1624-28 in Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, and 1633-36 in Publow Parish, Somersetshire. We do not know whether Thomas and Elizabeth also spent time in Pontypool, Monmouthshire (now Gwent, Wales) where Henry and James were rumored to have been born about 1618 and 1620.[10] An article by W. D. John and Anne Simox reported that James and Henry left the Hanbury ironworks at Pontypool about 1646 and migrated to the English colonies.[11] But because they left from Pontypool to come to America doesn’t mean they were born there.

 

 

Bill Barton has an excellent presentation of the facts surrounding the establishment of an iron industry in Massachusetts in the 1640’s.[12] John Winthrop, son of Gov. Winthrop, sailed to England in 1641 to get the necessary support, materials, and workmen to set an ironworks in Massachusetts. The recruitment of skilled workmen, in particular, was not easy.[13] It should be remembered that the 1640’s were a time of civil war in England. The Royalists drew their strength from the western shires, and Cromwell’s troops subsequently destroyed many of the forges in the area, since they had been supplying the Royalists with cannon.

 

 

We do know there were Leonards in Pontypool in the early 1600’s. A Thomas Leonard is mentioned in a deed of July 29, 1633, bordering lands of John Powell, John Gerbon, and Philip Morgan in Trevethin (a parish near Pontypool, with a bridge near the swamp and pool there in 1490, the pool later becoming a forge pond). An ironworks was in operation there before 1634, when there’s a record of a complaint against John Wylde for failure to collect monies from it, instead selling iron at a discount to his friends. Thomas Morgan was recorded as selling charcoal to the forge in 1640. The ironworks were apparently owned by the Hanburys, who also owned similar works in Bilston, Staffordshire.[14]

 

 

Manning Leonard visited Europe in 1864, taking a side trip to Pontypool. He found the old records in Pontypool badly kept and uninformative about early Leonards. But he did discover several Leonards living in the area, including a John Leonard who took him to a graveyard near the ancient church of Trevethan, 2 miles north of Pontypool, where he found inscriptions from an early recording the deaths of John and James Leonard.[15]

 

 

I also visited Pontypool in 2002 and found evidence of Leonards living in the area from the 1600’s to the present day. Among the old documents in the Monmouthshire (Gwent) County Records Office in Pontypool were Gwenllian, wife of Thomas Leonard, buried March 15, 1656; Mary Leonard married Alexander Lewis January 26, 1656; a son of Philip Leonard was born October 27, 1656. There is a will of Thomas Leonard, yeoman of Trevethin, proven February 28, 1658. The inventory was signed by Morgan Leonard. None of the 11 children of “our” Thomas are mentioned in the will, so it is another Thomas Leonard.[16] Later records showed a Thomas Leonard, son of Jacob Leonard, born baptized January 9, 1699; Ann, daughter of James Leonard, baptized March 13, 1702; Sarah, daughter of James Leonard, baptized March 13, 1702; and a John and Mary Leonard who died at age 84 in 1774. Another researcher has found that another James Leonard was working in the iron industry there, having three children – William, Thomas, and Anne – baptized in Trevethan between 1696 and 1703.

 

 

There are supposedly two articles by Stanley G. Leonard published before 1977 in the Pontypool Free Press: Local Links with Early United States Iron Industry” and “The Early Iron Men of America.” I spent a number of hours at the Gwent County Records Office going through old copies of the Pontypool Free Press without finding the two articles in question. That there have been Leonards in the area is certainly well established in various newspaper articles.

 

 

My hypothesis is that the Pontypool Leonards of the 1600’s are related to “our” James, Henry, and Philip, our distant cousins, if you will. The naming patterns bear striking similarities to those of James and Henry’s descendants. If earlier generations repeated names the way James’ descendants did, there would be a number of Jameses, Thomases, Johns, Philips, and the like in succeeding generations, some of whom stayed in Monmouthshire, some of whom migrated elsewhere. A more diligent researcher than I with more time to dig through Monmouthshire records and newspapers may be able to establish the facts and relationships.

 

 

There were Leonard ironworkers also in the Bilston area of Staffordshire (near Birmingham, Warwickshire) about the time of the emigration of Henry, James, Philip, and Thomas and thereafter. James Leonard’s son, Thomas, was born August 8, 1641, at Kinver, on the River Stour, near Bilston. Bilston was the center of the “Black Country” iron industry.[17] Apparently, the early Leonards left a claim to the ownership of some heavily mortgaged ironworks there.[18] Early in the 19th Century, an ironworker in Bilston by the name of James Leonard sent a letter to James Leonard, ironworker in or near Taunton, stating that the extensive iron works there in Bilston belonging to the Leonards. The Leonards in Taunton decided not to undertake the expense of an extended suit to regain the works.

 

 

According to Hannah Leonard Deane, the father of Thomas Leonard was Henry Leonard. Efforts to find a candidate Henry Leonard have come to naught. There were recorded Henry Leonards in England during the appropriate time, say 1550 to 1600, but none of them appear to have been ironworkers living in Monmouthshire, Somersetshire, Shropshire, or Staffordshire. Probably the most likely candidate is one Henry Leonard who must have been a reasonably wealthy merchant in Chester, Cheshire.[19] An order dated June 2, 1618, gave him the use of 100 pounds of the City’s money on payment of 5% per year interest to set 51 poor people to work in fustian making. A further order was that if the Company of Mersers and Ironmongers would not take the 100 pounds on conditions offered by Henry Leonard, they were to refer themselves o the Mayor for such action as was thought fit. Barton notes that the only Henry Leonard listed in the Chester Freemen’s Rolls 1392-1805 is a Henry Leonard, weaver, son of Thomas Leonard, shoemaker listed as “defunct” on September 18, 1615. That Henry apparently passed away before the City’s order to (presumably) another Henry.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thomas Leonard is called "the Immigrant." He was one of the last of the 13 children of Sampson Leonard and Margaret Fiennes, Baroness Dacre, of Knol in Kent and Herstmonceux in East Sussex. Being one the last of many children of a titled family didn't stand for much. Thomas is found as a skilled iron worker in Pontypool, Wales. He is a skilled iron worker there. He also married Lydia White there in 1600. Thomas Leonard and his son Henry Leonard, and another son, made the trip to Massachusetts, where all three worked in the colonial iron forges. Lydia died in Pontypool, Wales in 1701. Thomas died in Taunton, Bristol Co, MA on 6 Nov 1638. Thomas Leonard, along with his son became the founders of an roaming iron-working dynasty that lasted over 200 years. ^6,7

Sources

1	Institute of Family Research, "Millennium File".

2	"US and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500-1900".

3	"American Genealogical-Biographical Index" (Godfrey Memorial Library, On-Line, Provo, UT).

4	"MA Census, 1790-1890".

5	Edmund West, "Family Data Collection - Death" (Generations Network, Inc 2001).

6	"http://www.bradsport.com/Leonardorigins.htm".

7	"Find a Grave".