Introduction | |
|
Home
Ships and trips Quakers |
I got a B+When my family moved to England in January of 2000, my grandmother said that we were moving home. At the time I knew only a tiny amount about our family. Not much is known about my oldest known ancestor on the Leech family line, Richard Leech. He was born in England about 1613. He left London for Barbados at the age of 22 as an indentured servant on April the third of 1635. An indentured servant is someone who doesn't have enough money to afford passage, so they sign a contract with a wealthy person. The contract says that in exchange for the rich person paying the passage, the indentured has to work as a servant for several years in the New World. After their time is up, they are free to go wherever they want. There is a gap of 77 years after he left for Barbados, and then another Richard Leech appears in Pennsylvania where he is married in a Quaker ceremony. The genealogist thinks that this is the son of the Richard Leech who might have moved to Pennsylvania after his indentured servant time in Barbados was up. This second Richard Leech had a son called Thomas, who also had a son called Thomas. This Thomas had a strange will where the first item on the will is "one suitable horse creature". He also says in his will "if my said wife's horse creature should at anytime die I then direct that my said executors speedily replace it with a suitable one out of my estate. He also left $13 to his grandson Joseph Leech Hoops because he told the boy's parents he would do so if they put leech as his middle name. Thomas had a son called John. John Leech was born in 1767 in Pennsylvania. After the Revolutionary War he represented his township of Warrington, Pennsylvania in the state house of Representatives, as well as the state senate as a Jeffersonian Democrat. When the civil war broke out, he became a Republican under President Lincoln, because family records state that he was very opposed to slavery. He died in 1864. Before he died, he had converted from a Quaker to a Methodist. But, before any of this could happen, my ancestors had to come to the New World. |
