Samuel Leonard
Samuel Leonard, one of the real "old settlers" of Greene county, one of the "squirrel hunters" during the Civil War, for many years a blacksmith and later a farmer and landowner, now and for years past a resident of the village of Alpha, in Beavercreek township, is a native "Buckeye" and has lived in this state all his life, a resident of Greene county practically all the time since the middle '40s. He was born at Bunker Hill, in Butler county, May 26, 1836, son of Samuel and Catherine (Franer) Leonard, both of whom were born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, where they grew up and were married; shortly after their marriage coming to Ohio and locating in Butler county about the year 1832.
During his residence in Butler county the elder Samuel Leonard's activities were chiefly concerned with the leveling of the big timber and he became locally quite famous as a wood-cutter and rail-splitter. He remained in Butler county until about 1846, when he came up into this part of the state with his family and located at Dayton, but a few years later came over into Greene county and settled at Alpha, where he spent the rest of his life, his death occurring at the age of seventy-four years. His wife died at the age of seventy and both were buried in Mt. Zion graveyard. They were the parents of four children, of whom the subject of this sketch, the third in order of birth, is now the only survivor, the others having been William, a retired farmer, who died at Dayton in 1910; Matilda Ann, who was the wife of John Engle, a Beavercreek township farmer, and Louis, who was a blacksmith.
Samuel Leonard's early youth was spent in the backwoods of Butler county and he was about ten years of age when his parents moved up to Dayton. He later came with them over into Greene county and his schooling was completed at Apha. Not long after the family located at Alpha he became apprenticed to a blacksmith at Fairfield, though continuing to make his home vvith his parents at Alpha, and in due time he became a proficient blacksmith, a vocation he followed most of his life thereafter until his retirement. In 1860 he married and for four years thereafter operated a blacksmith shop at Medway, up in Clark county, returning to Alpha in 1864 and opening a blacksmith shop there. Ten years later he bought a farm in Beavercreek township as an investment, renting the same, and kept that farm until in December, 1917, when he sold it, feeling that he was nearing an age at which he would be unable to give its management the care he would desire. For years Mr. Leonard continued his smithy at Alpha and then retired from active labors. Since the death of his wife in 1906 he has been living alone at his home in Alpha. He is a Democrat and for fourteen years served as treasurer of his home township, being kept in that office by successive re-elections in a stronghold of Republicanism, a compliment on the part of his friends which he has never ceased to appreciate. During the days of the Civil War Mr. Leonard rendered service as a member of the locally famous organization of "squirrel hunters" and with that command marched away toward Cincinnati to help in repelling Morgan's invasion of the state. It was in 1860 that Samuel Leonard was married. His wife, who, as noted above, died in 1906, was Rebecca Engle, who was born in Beavercreek township, this county, daughter of Henry Engle and wife, well known among the early settlers of that township and the former of whom lived to be past ninety years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard had no children and Mr. Leonard is thus alone in his declining years. Though now in his eighty-third year he continues to take an active interest in current affairs and retains distinct memories of other days, being able to tell many an entertaining story of the days now long past.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918