Fourth Generation

299. Jonathan Stewart LEONARD³⁸⁶ was born in 1740 in Easton, Bristol Co., MA. He died on 4 May 1802 at the age of 62 in Wilmot, Nova Scotia. Was he born in 1735/36 in Easton, MA? There was a Jonathan Leonard born 29 July 1734 in Bridgewater to Joseph Leonard and Mary Packard (Solomon Leonard line) who was not this Jonathan. James Chilton Silver Book has him born ca. 1740, Lyme, CT (his wife was a Mayflower descendant). He was age 61 when he died in 1802. The Dodge Genealogy may have more.

He went to Halifax, Nova Scotia 18 Mar 1760 (NEHGS 28:414). According to ECL, he served in a Connecticut regiment at the siege of Louisburg prior to that. He sold his land at Annapolis, NS, and moved to Wilmot, Nova Scotia, where he built a saw mill. (Source: NEHGS, 1874, p. 413-15, "Massachusetts Soldiers at Halifax in 1759," A List of Capt. Josiah Thacher's Company in Col. John Thomas' Regiment. Landed in Halifax May 11, 1759. Capt. Josiah Thacher, Yarmouth, MA.)

More information about the family is in the History of Annapolis.

A descendant of Jonathan's now lives on his former property in Wilmot. He and his wife are buried there.

A synopsis of how Jonathan came to Nova Scotia, courtesy of Barbara Leonard Bishop, a direct descendant (2005):

In 1755 the British colonial government, in cahoots with New England settlers who were constantly clashing with the French and native peoples, deported its Acadian population. In 1758, Nova Scotia was given responsibility for governing the former Acadian area, clearing the way for New Englanders to come and take possession of these empty and fertile lands. The first shipload arriving on May 17, 1760. These New Englanders, as well as some from Germany and elsewhere, whom Nova Scotians call "Planters," eventually grew to 8,000 in a year or so.

Jonathan fought at Louisbourg in 1758. He went home and was discharged, but in 1761 he re-enlisted and was again sent to Nova Scotia. In 1764 he married Sarah Dodge in Granville Township, Annapolis Co., NS. He apparently came alone, and the ship's passenger list, on which he took passage, has not been found. All of the other Granville planters came from Massachusetts. Family tradition is that he came from Lyme, CT. He and his wife lived on land that her father, Capt. Josiah Dodge, gave them. He bought and sold land there in Granville.

When the flood of loyalists from New England began in the late 1770's and early 1780's, many of the Planters in Granville sold their properties and moved to the newly opened Wilmot grant. Jonathan ran his mill and inn here. His homestead overlooks the Annapolis River and behind the property is the site of an old Acadian mill. The village on the site was called "Paradise Terrestre" by the Acadians, and hence the current name, "Paradise."

Jonathan is mentioned in History of Annapolis, p. 228, first as applying for rights in 1777, and also: "...Jonathan Leonard left descendants who still occupy the lot assigned to him; and it was Leonard's hotel, at Paradise, where the Duke of Kent lunched on a fine Sunday, while on his way to New Brunswick, via Annapolis, in 1794, an event which has become a tradition to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren..." (History of the County of Annapolis by W.A. Calsek, 1897.)

Jonathan Stewart LEONARD and Sarah Maria DODGE were married on 1 November 1764 in Granville, Annapolis Co., Nova Scotia. Sarah Maria DODGE, daughter of Josiah DODGE and Susannah KNOWLTON, was born on 24 May 1749 in Lunenburg, Annapolis Co., Nova Scotia. She died on 15 July 1823 at the age of 74 in Wilmot, Annapolis Co., Nova Scotia. Sarah Leonard's will was probated 23 Sept 1824.

Sarah Dodge is a Mayflower descendant through Susannah Knowlton, Susanna Dutch, Susanna More, Richard More. See Vol. 15, Mayflower Descendants through 5 Generations, p. 135.

Jonathan Stewart LEONARD and Sarah Maria DODGE had the following children: