USA > New York > Onondaga County > Pompey > Re-union of the sons and daughters of the old town of Pompey > Part 26
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" James and his sons," says the same authority, "often treated with the Indians, and were on such terms of friend- ship with them, that when the war broke out, King Philip gave strict orders to his men never to hurt the Leonards. Philip resided in winter at Mount Hope ; but his summer residence was at Raynham, about a mile from the forge."
Tradition says he was buried there under the front porch of the old Leonard mansion-a mansion which sheltered
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the heads of six generations of the name-the brick used in its construction having been brought from England.
James Leonard, (son of above James,) and his son James, were both Captains, and each lived to be more than eighty years old. Stephen Leonard was a son of the latter, and was a justice of the Peace, and a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. His oldest son, Major Zephaniah Leonard, born March 18th, 1704, of Taunton, died on the same day his wife, 23à April, 1776 ; he in his sixty-third, she in her sixty-second year, and were both buried in the same grave ; the inscription on the monument is historical.
He was a man of enterprise and energy, possessing great native dignity of character, and filled with honor the dis- tinguished station in society which he attained. In 1761 he was appointed a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which office he held until his death. Their oldest son, Cap- tain Joshua Leonard, was born January 5th, 1724, and died 27th November, 1816, aged 92 years.
His oldest son was the Rev. Joshua Leonard, (of the sixth generation from the progenitor James,) the subject of this notice, who was born June 25th, 1769. He graduated at Brown University, 1788; was first settled in Ellington, Conn., whence, about the year 1797 or 1798, he went to Cazenovia, Madison county, N. Y., then in its intancy : sta- tioning himself on the rim of civilization as it advanced westward across the continent. At this place, on the 17th of May, 1799, he formed a Presbyterian Church -- the first one there, consisting of only nine members ; he continued the pastor of this church about fourteen years, when, on account- of impaired health, he resigned his charge ; the church then numboring 127 members. In a theological work published by him at Cazenovia in 1834, " The Unity of God," he says: " I was the first pastor who settled in this wide region of country ; my church was a single, independent, Congrega- tional Church; I was a single, independent, Congregational Minister. From Cazenovia to the Pacific Ocean, there was not one Congregational or Presbyterian pastor ; not one in
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this State to the north or south of me; not one to the east, nearer than Mr. Steele, of Paris, in Oneida county." On leaving the Cazenovia church, he moved to Pompey, and, in 1814, became preceptor of the Pompey Academy; occu- pying that position for eight years. Under his administra- tion that Institution flourished, and had a wide influence.
He still continued to accept the frequent invitations to fill the neighboring pulpits. He was a man of sterling integri- ty, untiring industry, of a fetterless independence and bold- ness, of very extensive reading, large and accurate acquire- ments, and a singular power of condensed expression.
As, robed in a long flowing morning gown, with high hose and knee-buckles, staff in hand, he used to take his rapid morning walks through the village, he left an impres- sion of dignity and goodness on the minds of the youth so vivid, that it has yet scarcely been dimmed by the half cen- tury intervening.
He died at Auburn, at his daughter's, Mrs. Helen L. Wil- liams, December 18th, 1843, aged 75 with faculties unim- paired, retaining his undiminished interest in all the literary and scientific progress of the day ; Mrs. Leonard having died at Lineklaen, Chenango county, nineteen years previous. Of their nine children, six survive, and reside at Chicago, Ill. the youngest of whom is sixty-three years old; longevity being one of their characteristics, as if some of the iron of their manufacture had entered into their composition ; asis- ter still surviving, at Raynham of the age of ninety-nine.
LUTHER MARSII
Must have come to Pompey sometime prior to 1812. Born, Walpole, N. H., October 14, 1782; died, Chicago, Novem- ber 14, 1859, aged 77. He was son of Captain Elisha Marsh, (who subsequently removed from Walpole to Guilford, Ver- mont,) and grandson of Rev. Elisha Marsh, a graduate of Harvard, and the first minister at Westminster, Mass., from 1742 to 1757.
ENDICOTT &CO LITH NY
LUTHER MARSH
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This el ergyman was arraigned for heresy, for saying that "obedience is the condition of salvation ;" and that "he would as soon worship the devil as worship such a being as requires more from his creatures than they are able to per- form ;" for saying that "if all that was required of a man was to believe, then the condition of salvation was easy and pleasant to fools." He was a spicy character. One morn- ing, on meeting the sheriff from a neighboring town, who was on his way to sue the town, and who, pursuant to the custom to serve writ on some one of the citizens,served it on him ; saying in a pleasant manner as he handed him the writ; "The grace of God, Mr. Marsh." "Yes, by the hands of the Devil," was the quick retort. He moved to Walpole, Cheshire Co., N. H., and became Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
Luther Marsh was the fifth, in direct line, from John Marsh, one of the first settlers of Hadley, Mass., and after- wards, 1639, of Hartford, Conn., where he married Anne, daughter of John Webster, Governor of Connecticut. Lu- ther Marsh, June 24th, 1812, married Emma Rawson, daugh- ter of Doctor Thomas Hooker Rawson, of Canandaigua, N. Y. She was the fourth from Rev. Grindal Rawson, of Men- don, Mass., the friend and classmate at Harvard, of Cotton Mather ; who, in preaching his funeral sermon, (1715,) said, "We honored him for his doing the work of an Evangelist among our Judeans, of whose language he was a master that had scarce an equal, and for whose welfare his projection and performances were such as to render our loss herein hardly to be repaired. Such services are Pyramids." Grin- dal Rawson was the twelfth child of Edward Rawson, of Bos- ton, who came over from England in 1636, and was, for thirty-six years, 1651-1686,Secretary of the colony of Massa- chusetts. Emma Rawson was also the sixth from Rev. Charles Chauncey, the second President of Harvard College. She died at Pompey, April 4th, 1820. By this marriage there were four children, of whom two survive ; Luther Rawson Marsh, lawyer, New York city, and Elisha Azro Marsh, dealer in mines, California.
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Luther Marsh married, for second wife, Margaret Leon- ard, daughter of Rev. Joshua Leonard, of Pompey. She re- sides at Chicago. By this marriage there were two chil- dren, Alexander Marsh, lumber merchant, and Joshua Leon- ard Marsh, lawyer, both of Chicago, Ill.
Luther Marsh was High-Sheriff of Onondaga county for two terms, 1823-6.
NOAH PALMER, SR.
Was born in Brantford, Conn.,in the year 1764. When he was seven years old his father died in Connecticut,about the beginning of the Revolutionary War. As early as 1790 he came from Brantford to Cazenovia, and bought a place with Col. Linelaen, in 1797, in Pompey, near Oran, now owned by his grand-son Daniel D. Palmer. Upon this farm he lived thirty-eight years. After he died his son Noah owned it thirty-six years. He was a nail maker, and worked for old Col. Linclaen at that business for five or six years. It is said he made the first nails that were used in building in the town of Pompey. He died in the year 1835, upon the land which he purchased in 1797, in Pompey; his son Noah succeeding him in the title to the estate. Two of his children, Noah and Martha, were born in Pompey, and these are both now (1874) dead. One daughter Mrs. Edmund Thomas, is living. Mr. Palmer was of that type of manhood whose stern and unyielding integrity bears fruit, in the years when his form lies silent in the grave, of whom it may be justly said, "Tho' dead he yet speaks."
DR. SILAS PARK.
Silas Park was born in Litchfield, Conn., December 1st, 1778. Having acquired a good education, he commenced the study of medicine with his unele, Dr. Robt. Starkweath- er in Chesterfield, Mass. He moved to Pompey West Hill, in 1800, and commenced the practice of his profession,his ride extending from Liverpool, on the north, to Port Wat-
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son, (Cortland village,) on the south, and from Skaneateles on the west, to Cazenovia on the east. This area then con- tained less than 3,000 white settlers whose population is now over 200,000 people. In 1802, he returned to Massachusetts and married Miss Dolly Clapp, of Chesterfield, daughter of Col. Amasa Clapp, of Chesterfield, a soldier of the Revolu- tion. On his return to Pompey, crossing the Hudson river at Albany in a sleigh, the ice broke, letting sleigh, horses, baggage, wife and all into the water. They narrowly es- caped drowning. They were rescued by citizens of Albany, who by chance saw them in their danger. This accident compelled them to remain in Albany a day or more. Nothing unusual occurred during the remainder of their journey. In 1803 their first child and only son, Dr. Elijah Park was born. In the war of 1812, Dr. Silas Park went as a surgeon with the soldiers who were called from this see- tion to Smith's Mills and Sackett's Harbor. There he met surgeons of the regular army, and he took a high position among them as a skillful physician and surgeon. He died in 1824. His wife survived him, living at the old home till she reached the age of 95 years, and died in the year 1867. When we ask what can be said of her, the answer is, "Any- thing and all that is good."
Their only son, Dr. Elijah Park was born in Pompey, now LaFayette, April 1st, 1803, and he studied with his father, and also with Doctors Beach and Davis of Marcellus, and his uncle Dr. Elijah Park, of Otisco, He graduated at the Berkshire Medical Institute, December 26, 1826. He was at the time he graduated and has continued to be a practic- ing Physician up to the time of his death, his home being in LaFayette village. He was married twice, the first time August 24, 1824, to Miss Catharine Parent, of Otisco. By her he had ten children, four sons and six daughters; seven of them, two sons and five daughters are married and living within three hours ride of the old home. One married a carpenter and joiner, the others are farmers or farmers' wives. He was married a second time, April 14, 1843,
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to Betsey Parent, his first wife's sister, by whom he had two children, both of whom are dead. Both his wives are also dead, Catharine died September 20, 1842, and Betsey De- cember 4, 1867. Dr. Park held the office of Supervisor of the town of LaFayette, three years 1861-2 and 3, and was a Justice of the Peace one, 1869. His medical practice ex- tended over the county of Onondaga, and often in the neigh- boring counties. For nearly fifty years he rode over the hills and through the valleys of his native county, kindly ad- ministering to the wants and necessities of the afflicted. His life was too busy in dispensing the healing art to allow him time to make collections, and like Dr. Wmn. Taylor, of Manlius, although he did a business that would have yield- ed a large fortune, he died June 17, 1873, leaving but a moderate share of worldly possessions, but rich in the kind wishes of his many friends, and richer still in the smiles of his beneficent Redeemer.
The following notice of his death appeared in a Syracuse paper, the day after his decease.
DEATH OF DR. ELIJAH PARK OF LAFAYETTE .- Dr. Elijah · Park, one of the oldest and most respected residents of this county, died at his residence in LaFayette, on Tuesday morn- ing, aged 71 years. Dr. Park was born in the town of La- Fayette, and was the son of Silas Park, an eminent physi- cian, who resided in that town. The son followed the foot- steps of his father, attended medical lectures at Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1827, and became one of the most popular physicians in this section of the State. He had a very extensive practice in his immediate neighborhood, and was frequently called as counsel to other localities. The deceased was always an active poli- tician and popular citizen, and represented his town for sev- eral terms in the Board of Supervisors, and held other re- sponsible town offices. He was elected Justice of the Peace three terms in succession at a period when the party with which he acted was in a large minority in the town, but his well known integrity and capacity carried him over party
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lines and elected him to the office. He was always among the foremost in village or town enterprises, and his judg- ment, sagacity, and proved integrity and honesty, placed him in the front rank among his fellow citizens on all oeca- sions where intelligence, prudence, and sagacity, were need- ed to direct the councils of the people. He had a wide' cir- cle of relatives and acquaintances, and his loss will be sin- cerely mourned by all who knew him. The funeral will take place on Thursday afternoon at 2 o'clock, under the direction of the order of Odd Fellows, of which the deceased was a prominent member, and of the order of Free and Ac- cepted Masons of which he was also a member.
LEMAN HARMON PITCHER.
COMPILED BY LEMAM BAKER PITCHER.
Leman H. Pitcher was born in Rutland, Vermont, Novem- ber 26th, 1781; he was the son of Reuben, the son of Ebene- zer, the son of Samuel, Jr., the son of Samuel, Sr., the son of Andrew, who came of Somerset County, England, in 1633, and settled in Dorcester, Mass., where he died in 1660.
Leman H. Pitcher went to school about six months before he was eight years old, and about three more between the age of twelve and thirteen. From eight to twelve he lived with his uncle Harmon, who was too poor to send him to school, yet rich enough to send his own son of like age, summer and winter. At one time he asked his uncle if he might go to school, and the reply was "that it cost money," and "that it was not expected that everybody would go." This caused him to cry, for which he was called a "booby," and ordered off to bed. In later years, he has often told his children, that this circumstance caused him to form a resolution, "that he would know something if he had to steal it." While young Oliver, his cousin, played and slept, Leman H., as opportunities offered, read his books, and at twelve he was the better scholar. The next year he lived with his mother, and the two succeeding years worked out
22
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for $50 and $65 per year. In 1796, he and the family moved to Pompey, and settled where Adison H. Clapp now resides. In the winter of 1797 or 1798, he and John Sprague studied arithmetic during the evenings with an old surveyor, who lived near Watervale, to whom they gave a bushel of oats, then of the value of fifteen cents, for each evening.
In November, 1798, his right foot was nearly severed just below the ankle joint. When climbing a well post to assist in adjusting the well sweep, his step-father Starkweather, attempted to strike the axe in the post, to assist him in climbing, but his foot slipping just as the axe fell, received the full force of the blow, and his foot was held only by the skin of the heel. A council of Doctors was held, and all ad- vised amputation ; one said, " it might possibly get well ;" to this he replied, "I am without education, trade or money, and I had rather go to the grave with my foot, than to live a poor cripple all my life ;" "do the best you can, I am re- solved to live or die with my foot." During the following year while the wound was healing, he studied hard to pre- pare himself for teaching schoool and for business. In 1800 he taught his first school in a school house that stood near the corners about a mile north-westerly from the Hill to- wards Jamesville. In 1801 and afterwards he taught on the Hill as related by Mrs. Miller in her paper, June 29, 1871. He continued to teach five or six years, winters, and some- times summers. Between 1801 and 1808 he was constable and deputy sheriff, and about this time he became a free mason. In the Spring of 1808 he married Hannah Baker, aunt of Dea. Samuel Baker, of Pompey Hill, and moved to Camillus, N. Y.
Leman B. Pitcher was in Camillus January 30th, 1809. Mr. Pitcher was engaged in the fall of 1810, and the winter and summer foliowing in preparing and rafting hewn tim- ber for the Montreal market. Going down the Oswego riv- er he ventured too near the falls and was carried over with a broken raft with two other men one of whom was drowned. All he had (about $4,000) and something more, was embarked
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in the business. After some loss of timbers and many de- lays he sailed from Oswego with his re-collected raft and was again damaged in running the rapids of the St. Lawrence river, and finally when about fifty miles above Montreal the news of the declaration of war reached him. This news was unexpected. Two days later his timber in Montreal was worth only half price, and the next only a third and no cash at that, and to make bad worse he was notified to take the oath of allegiance or leave in three days. If he left his tim- ber, it would be confiscated. Hle therefore sold it for dry goods, being the best he could do, and as non-intercourse was declared, his only chance was to smuggle the goods home. This he attempted, but when near Ogdensburgh, his goods were seized and he arrested. His excuse was that the circumstances compelled him to do as he had done, and through the influence of his masonic brothers he was allowed or enabled to escape. He reached Oswego with sixteen cents and a roll of coarse cloth. All else was gone. When he left home he expected to return in five or six weeks witlı $6,000 or $7,000. He was gone from June to January, and came back with almost nothing. In the Spring of 1812, he took a farm on the ridge road two miles east of Lewiston on the Niagara frontier, where he raised vegetables which he sold to the soldiers stationed at Lewiston. He also bought of others and sold. In this way he accumulated over $2,000, before the 19th of December, 1813. Then the British and Indians who had erossed the river about three miles below the night previous, surrounded his house and took him and his family prisoners, plundered them of every thing they thought worth carrying away, and burned the remainder with the buildings. Mr. Pitcher was taken by one party who had charge of the men prisoners destined for Halifax. On the road half way to the river, this party was attacked by the Tuscarora friendly Indians, and while the skirmish was going on he escaped. The mother and her three children, Leman B., Sally and Nancy were stripped of every garment that could tempt the cupidity of a savage. The last gar-
.
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ment was an old red cloak. This an Indian demanded and an officer told him he "must not have it," for which the Indian shot him. The snow was about six inches deep, and Mrs. Pitcher with a babe in her arms, a sick boy on her back, and a little girl walking by her side, half naked with other prisoners was driven on by a drunken and uncontrollable rabble of Indians and a few British soldiers. On the road they saw one child tomahawked, another gun-clubbed, and still another empaled upon the stake of a fence. The num- ber of women and children prisoners from Mr. Pitcher's neighborhood, was nineteen. They had rations for three days, and after that they were turned adrift to live and sleep in the woods near Queenstown, without fire, food or cloth- ing. For nearly three weeks they lived on what the soldiers and indians threw away, and slept close together to keep warm in a rude cabin made of poles and brush. They were put over the river and set at liberty at Lewiston, without food, the snow nearly 10 inches deep. They followed the ridge road east by the ruins of their home, and coming to an old house they covered the blood-stained floor with straw, and nestled down to rest. About 11 o'clock at night, they were startled by the cry of "who comes there," and " I have a flag of truce." It was Mr. Pitcher who had that day been to Forts Niagara and George, and up to Queenstown, where he learned that his wife, children and others had been set at liberty. When he found them he was returning to get horses to go to Buffalo that night. The sleigh he procured was soon filled with nineteen happy souls, women and children, while he, his brother James and a friend, ran by their side, thirteen miles, when they all found food and rest. A few days after, in the early part of January, 1814, Mr. Pitcher and his family arrived safely in Pompey. Thus twice was Mr. Pitcher ruined by the war. In the following fall he commenced keeping a hotel five miles east of Buffalo, where in sixteen months he cleared $1,800.00, with which in the Spring of 1816, he moved into Chautauque county on a branch of the Allegany river.
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The cold seasons of 1816,17 and 18, were unproductive, and in 1821 he moved poor and discouraged to the Cataraugus creek, and ever after only tried to "bring the year about." Here he acted as Justice of the Peace for thirty-six years, noted as a peace-maker, and no judicial decision of his was ever reversed. In 1826, while traveling on a journey in Genesee county, a heavy shower coming up he stopped and finally remained over night with a farmer, and there found " The old family Bible," which was taken in 1813, carried to Canada, retaken by the U. S. soldiers, brought back and sold at Black Rock for whiskey, and afterwards bought by the farmer for half a bushel of potatoes. The last eight years of his life Mr. Pitcher spent with his son Leman B. Pitcher, and he died April 14, 1867. His brother James P. Pitcher will be remembered by the early residents of Pompey as a successful school teacher from 1805 to 1810. He married Anna Brewer, and went with his brother to Buffalo and Chautauque County, and about forty years ago, to Oakland County, Michigan, where he and his wife died in 1868, re- spected by all who knew them.
MANOAH PRATT, SR.
Manoah Pratt, Sr. was born in 1754, in Glastenbury, Con- necticut, and in 1796 he came to Pompey. He and Abra- ham Smith purchased five hundred acres of land on Lots No. 39 and 40, obtaining title thereto through General Fish, of New York city. Pratt's Falls are upon this land. At this time but few settlers were located in this part of the town. Murry had settled on Lot No. 28, and Hezekiah and Ezra Dodge on Lot No. 50. Messrs. Pratt and Smith commenced immediately to reclaim their wilderness farms, and a beau- tiful creek running through that of Mr. Pratt, he erected a saw mill and a flouring mill in 1796, being among the first mills built in Onondaga County. These mills were built upon the rock overlooking the falls, where the miller attend- ing to his accustomed labor was in constant communion with the magnificent natural scenery of the place, viewing at
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will objects of grandeur and sublimity, that the lover of na- ture would travel miles to witness.
Mr. Pratt, had married a Miss Elizabeth Loveland, daugh -< ter of Solomon Loveland, of Glastenbury, and all his chil- dren were born in Connecticut, except the youngest, Ma- noah Pratt, Jr., who was among the earliest of the sons of Pompey. Having procured a frontier home his family came to Pompey in February, 1797, and with them came his father-in-law, Solomon Loveland, who was a miller, and who for some twenty years attended the mill. At the age of eighty-five years he would take a bag of two bushels of wheat from the back of a horse and carry it into the mill. He died at the age of ninety-seven years, and was buried in the cemetery near what was known as "Dodge's school house," near the center of the present town of Pompey. Mr. Pratt, in addition to carrying on his saw and flouring mills, engaged in agriculture, making large additions to his first purchase. He was active in the early improvements of the town, and contributed freely to the establishment of schools and churches. He was one of the first to organize the Pompey Academy, was a member of the building com- mittee and spent much time and money in assisting to bring the enterprise to a successful termination. He finally do- nated one hundred dollars to the institution, for which he gave a mortgage on his land, which his son Manoah Pratt, Jr., finally paid after his father's death. He closed busy life in death at the age of eighty-seven years, in the year 1841. His wife survived him only one year, and died at the age ef eighty-eight years, and the memory of their he- roic labor and constant toil remains a rich legacy to their descendants.
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