Third Generation

18. Zenas LEONARD was born on 19 March 1809 in Clearfield Co., PA. He died on 14 July 1857 at the age of 48 in Sibley, MO. He was buried in Fort Osage Reservation, Independence, MO. While it seems logical that Zenas and Nancy would have a son, Zenas, there seems to be some question as to whether this Zenas was actually their son. No original records have turned up in my search that would prove the relationship; all references are to genealogies by other people (e.g., Strong family).

American Authors
Kunitz and Haycraft

Leonard, Zenas
March 19, 1809- July 14, 1857, trapper and narrator, was the son of Abraham Leonard and Elizabeth Armstrong Leonard. He was born near Clearfield PA and worked on his father's farm until he was twenty-one, then entered the store of an uncle in Pittsburgh. Determining to become a trapper, he soon went to St. Louis and in the capacity of a clerk joined an expedition setting out for the Rocky Mountains. He journeyed as far west as California, undergoing many adventures and dangers, part of the time becoming a free trapper with no means of subsistence save his gun and traps, and from 1833 member of the expedition led by the French-American, Captain Benjamin Louis E. de Bonneville, then exploring the fur country. After more than five years absence from home, having long been mourned as lost, he reappeared and so intense was the interest in his story that he wrote an account of his travels that was published in part in the Clearfield Republican and later in book form. The theft of part of his journal by hostile Indians left a gap which he filled in by consulting the journal of the expedition's leader. He later established himself as an Indian and Santa Fe trader on the site of Old Fort Osage, Sibley, MO, where he died. He left two children. His book, which is highly valued as a narrative of its particular period and field, was issued in a limited edition in 1904 edited by W. F. Wagner, and as a Lakeside Classic in 1934 edited by M. M. Quaife.

Narrative of the Adventures of Zenas Leonard, 1839

Above courtesy of Susan <kalpol@aol.com>. His parents were Abraham Leonard and Elizabeth Armstrong. His grandparents were Patrick Leonard, b. 1740 in County Down, Ireland, and Margaret Delaney Thompson.

Zenas LEONARD and Isabel B. HARRELSON were married about 1838. Isabel B. HARRELSON was born in 1825. She died in 1851 at the age of 26.

Zenas LEONARD and Isabel B. HARRELSON had the following children: