Ancestral Glimpses » Tobias Leech II (± 1654-????)

Données personnelles Tobias Leech II 

• Il est né environ 1654 dans Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, ENGLAND.
• Immigré(e)(s) le 28 octobre 1682.

  The only one of the First Purchasers who never came to America was John Ashmead who had died in England sometime before 1682. However, Mary, his widow and the mother-in-law of Tobias Leech who was one of Cheltenham’s most prominent settlers, reached Delaware Bay, with her children and the Leech family, aboard the Bristol Factor on October 28, 1682, at the same time as the Welcome.
  
  ...
  There is definite proof that the remaining six First Purchasers did settle in
  Cheltenham. Two of the most prominent, Tobias (generally referred to as
  Toby) Leech and Richard Wall, were the ones who had come from
  Cheltenham, England. Their lives have been carefully researched by some of
  their descendants and by local historians.
  
  The Leech family arrived in America aboard the Bristol Factor in October 1682; and it is presumed that the Walls were on the same ship but were not listed because they had no goods as cargo for resale. The heads of these two families are considered to be the founding fathers of the township because they were among the first settlers in Cheltenham and gave the township its name. The Walls and the Leeches became related in succeeding generations and their descendants intermarried with the families of such other early residents as the Russells, the Shoemakers, and the Thompsons. There are residents living in the township today who can trace their ancestry back to these two first settlers who had completely different religious convictions and interests.
  
  

• Religion: a Quaker.
• (Land Owner In) le 10 septembre 1683 dans Cheltenham Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, British America.
• Un enfant de Tobias Leech et Jane Halinge
• Cette information a été mise à jour pour la dernière fois le 17 septembre 2013.

Famille de Tobias Leech II

Il est marié avec Esther Ashmead.

Ils se sont mariés le 26 décembre 1679 à Gloucestershire, ENGLAND.

Enfant(s):

1. Tobias Leech  1680-???? 

Notes par Tobias Leech II

Tobias Leech, in the first deed transferring land to him, has been described as a “gentleman” and his family coat-of-arms suggests a background of nobili­ty. He was a well-educated man, special note having been made of his ability to write well, an accomplishment in colonial times.

When Toby Leech came to America, he was accompanied by his wife Esther, his infant son also named Toby, his mother-in-law Mary Ashmead, and his wife’s sisters and brothers. He and Richard Wall were the only two First Purchasers to receive two separate land grants in the township. It was on his 200 acre tract, across Old York Road from Richard Wall’s grant, that he built his first house near Cedar Road south of what is now Church Road. He also erected a corn and fulling mill, nearby on the Tookany Creek to the west of Mill Road below Church Road, that gave Mill Road its name.

What would have been another reminder of Cheltenham’s heritage, Leech’s house, burned down about 1700 but it was soon rebuilt. It remained in the family until 1856 when Isaac Leech sold it to John Thompson, one of William Thompson’s descendants. The house was demolished about 1925. A link to the past does remain, however, in yet another house built by Toby Leech, with an assigned date of 1721, that is still standing at the corner of Old Soldiers Road and Ryers Avenue in Cheltenham Village (then Milltown). Toby’s son Abraham, who reportedly lived in this Township landmark, died in 1787 “near Frankford.” Land in Militown was obtained by Toby Leech when he added to his original purchases by acquiring a “part of Oxford and Upper Dublin Townships in the city of Philadelphia including the villages of Milltown and Fox Chase.” He was also involved in land transactions in Delaware and Chester counties. The businesses he conducted in Cheltenham, in addition to his corn and fulling mill, were a tannery and a bakery that made and sold “seabisquit” for ships.

Proceeds from his diverse enterprises permitted him to live well and to par­ticipate in the “gentlemanly” sport of fox-hunting. His hunting grounds were well-known in the area and were said to have been kept up by his son and grandson after his death in 1726. Tradition has it that the village of Fox Chase, or at least the hotel by that name, received its name because it was part of Leech’s hunting grounds; however, no supporting documentation has been found for this claim.

Located at the southwest corner of Second Street and Church Alley (between what is now Market and Arch Streets), Leech’s Philadelphia home was chronicled as being one of the first houses built of bricks.

Although Leech was a Quaker and attended the early meetings held at Wall’s house, he left the Society of Friends in 1690 to follow the teachings of George Keith. At this time, Keith created a bitter schism in the Meeting when he claimed the need for more ritual and more outward declaration of faith in God than was being practiced by the Quakers. Having become a Quaker in 1664 in England, Keith had emigrated in 1689 to America where he became headmaster for a year of the first Quaker school in Philadelphia, now the William Penn Charter School. In 1690, he submitted his points of religious dissatisfaction to the Philadelphia Meeting where he was charged with practicing “dualism” (God within and God without). He left the Society of Friends and returned to England where he was made a Deacon of the Church of England on May 12, 1700, was appointed its first missionary, and sent back to America. He helped found churches in America dedicated to the religious convictions of the Church of England and one of these was Trinity Church Oxford at Oxford Avenue and Disston Street in Philadelphia. Leech was its most prominant organizer and member and is buried there in the adjoining cemetery. The church museum owns a cane carried by Leech that has his name inscribed on a silver inset and possesses other memorabilia once belonging to members of the Leech family.

Active in the politics of his day, Leech is mentioned in a number of the sur­viving early chronicles of Philadelphia. He served as a member of the Provin­cial Assembly from 1713 to 1717 and also in 1719, was a County Commissioner of Philadelphia in 1718, and, together with George Shoemaker and others, was one of the jury selected to lay out Old York Road in 1711.
One of the first of the family to follow its progenitor’s interest in politics was Toby’s son Thomas. Thomas Leech, a leading Philadelphia merchant, was Clerk of the Provincial Assembly form 1723 to 1728 and was one of the com­missioners appointed by the Assembly to consider erecting a bridge over the Schuylkill in 1751. He was also one of the committee who procured the Liberty Bell for the State House and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the College of Philadelphia which became the University of Pennsylvania. He served for thirty-two years as a vestryman of Philadelphia’s Christ Church.
Other members of this family also have been of consequence in and around Philadelphia. A few of the familiar local names that can be traced back to Toby Leech are Penrose, Shoemaker, Hall, and Taylor.

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