JOHN
LEECH (deceased). Few
pioneer families of Northwestern Pennsylvania are more widely
representative than the Leechs. Their immediate ancestor, John
Leech, was born in York County, Penn., November 29, 1767, and was a
son of Thomas and Phoebe Leech, of that
county, and grandson of William Leech, who
came to America with William Penn. He there
grew up, and married Miss Jane Morrison
November 25, 1788. She was born in that county January 16, 1769. In
October, 1792, they moved to Somerset County, Penn., and ere their removal
to Mercer County. She was the
mother of six sons: David, Thomas, William, Joseph,
John and Samuel. Mr. Leech was a practical surveyor, and in the
spring of 1802 he removed with his family to this county and settled at
the place since known as “Leech’s
Corners,” on the Little Shenango, in what is now Sugar Grove
Township, where he arrived on the 4th day of May. The whole country was
then a vast forest, with a cabin here and there at long intervals, while
game of every sort was far more abundant than the necessities of the
pioneers demanded. Four sons and two daughters were born to John
and Jane Leech after coming to Mercer County: Phoebe,
James, Morris, Joshua, Jane and Asbury, who, with the four born in
York County, constituted one of those old-fashioned families of ten sons
and two daughters. Every one of these grew to maturity, and a remarkable
fact is that all lived to be over sixty years of age, the last survivor, Morris,
dying in September, 1884. John Leech was
first a Whig, then a Democrat, and afterward a Republican. He and his
three eldest sons went to Ohio in the War of 1812. In 1821 he ran for the
Assembly and was defeated, but in 1825 he was elected to the State Senate
and served four years. In 1828 he was the Adams and Rush elector for this
district, then composed of Mercer, Crawford and Erie Counties, James
Duncan, of Mercer, being the opposing elector on the Jackson and
Calhoun ticket. Mr. Leech was a good scholar and a fine conversationalist,
and after serving in the Senate he represented the county in the
Legislature. He was justice of the peace over thirty years, and throughout
the pioneer days was one of the most influential citizens of his adopted
county. He lived to see his ten sons and one of his daughters, Jane,
who married Jesse Smith, settled on farms in
the vicinity of the old home, while the other daughter,
Phoebe, married Rev. Charles Elliott, a
Methodist preacher, and shared his itinerant life. Mrs.
Jane Leech died October 16, 1841, her husband surviving her till
May 1, 1864, passing away at the ripe old age of nearly ninety-seven
years. The ancestors of the Leech family were Quakers, and came to
Philadelphia with its great founder, Penn, but soon after Mr. Leech’s
marriage he and wife united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and all
of their children were life-long members of that denomination. Three of
their sons, John, Samuel and Joshua, were
Methodist preachers. The memory of this pioneer couple will be revered
among the hills and valleys of Mercer County as long as the history of
pioneer life finds a sympathetic chord in the hearts of their numerous
descendants.
History
of Mercer County,
1888, pages 1138-1139
