Ancestors

James Leonard

An ironworker, and the first entry that has him by name is a wage line. The Lynn iron works account book for 1651: "James Leonnarde 15 days worke about finnerey Chimneye and other worke in ye forge, 1:13:0. To ditto Leonard for dressing his bellows 3 times, 1:10:0. To ditto soe much allowed him for bringing his goods from Prouidence, 2:0:0." A man paid by the day for chimney work and for dressing his own bellows.

The next year he and his brother Henry went south into a jurisdiction where the Massachusetts iron monopoly did not reach. The London owners saw it coming and tried to stop it by hiring away the one clerk they thought Plymouth could not do without, writing in September 1652 that otherwise the Plymouth men would raise iron works "to ower graet preiudice; & without him wee are confident thay will not be attempted." On 21 October the Taunton town meeting granted Henry Leonard "and James Leonard his brother, and Ralph Russell, free consent to come hither and join with certain of our inhabitants to set up a bloomery work on the Two mile River."

It became the first forge in the Plymouth Colony and, soon after, probably the principal one in America. Shares in it are handed down by will for generations afterwards. The house that stood a few rods from it was garrisoned through Philip's War, King Philip's head was kept in its cellar for a time after he was shot, and two young women killed in the war were buried under its door steps.

He was dead by 1691. The widow who survived him, Margaret, was stepmother to all eight of his children, so the woman who bore them is a person the record can prove existed and cannot name.

If James Leonard is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "James Leonard", https://heirology.com/ancestors/james-leonard-6ae4be.