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Sarah
(Harbaugh) Leonard |
Sarah (Harbaugh) Leonard was born on Nov. 18, 1810 in or near Rockwood, Somerset County, PA, the daughter of Leonard and Elizabeth (Pritts) Harbaugh.
Courtesy Mindy Leonard
When Sarah was a girl of about eight or nine, her mother died. Within a month or two, her widowed father then married young widow Martha (Minerd) Imel, who became Sarah's step-mother and raised her to womanhood.
On Sept. 12, 1830, when she was 19 years of age, Sarah entered into marriage with 24-year-old Benjamin Leonard (Feb. 15, 1806-1877), son of Constant and Mary (Thorp) Leonard and grandson of Fayette County pioneers Constantine and Elizabeth (Hamilton) Leonard.
The grandparents had migrated there from New Jersey, with their six children, "loaded on a wagon drawn by two oxen," wrote Rev. Amos Potter Leonard.
He had $1,000 in money, a lot of money in those days, with which to become established in a new home. He followed the old military road to Turkey-Foot (now Confluence) from there he followed a shorter route via Laurel Hill and the Indian Creek Valley and past where Springfield [Normalville] now stands, to Connellsville. Constantine was a carpenter and in plying his trade about the Iron Forge in N.J. he had been injured in moving a large wheel while repairing it. He died while getting a flat boat ready in Connellsville. Upon his death the family abandoned their thoughts of going further and Elizabeth took her family back along the route they had traveled until she reached the Indian Creek Valley.
Benjamin was two years of age when his father died, and he grew up on the farm of his grandfather Reuben Thorpe. When reaching the age of manhood, Benjamin received a gift of bottom lands on the family farm, along Meadow Run, south of Ohiopyle, Fayette Count. He cleared this land and built their home along with a one-room log chair rail factory. The business remained in operation in the family for some 70 years.
Sarah and Benjamin spent their married lives together on this tract. Today, the site of their homeplace is two miles directly south of the famed Kentuck Knob, a residence designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright for I. N. and Bernardine Hagan, owners of a local ice-cream business.
The Leonards together produced a brood of 11 children -- Eli Leonard, Isaac Leonard, Rev. Amos Potter Leonard, Samuel Leonard, Annie Young, Reuben Harbaugh Leonard, Rebecca Farmer, Christmas Leonard, Mary Potter, Martha Turney and Robert Bacom Leonard.
Sadly, sons Isaac and Samuel died young, with their remains asleep for the ages in the sacred soil of Irwin Memorial Cemetery near Ohiopyle. All that is known about Samuel is that he died at age three days on May 2, 1837. His older brother Isaac, born on Aug. 7, 1833, passed away at the age of 10 on Sept. 19, 1843. These details are recorded in the genealogy manuscript book kept by the boys' first cousin, Allen Edward Harbaugh, the famed "Mountain Poet" of Mill Run.
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| The Leonards' page in Allen Edward Harbaugh's hand-lettered genealogy portfolio, late 1800s - courtesy Rev. Dr. William "Bradford" Harbaugh |
1882 History naming
Benjamin and his son in law George Perry Potter were considered the first to construct wooden splint chairs at what was known as "Potter's Mills" along Meadow Run, made from the abundance of thick forest resources on their land. The 1882 book History of Fayette County, authored by Franklin Ellis, said that Benjamin:
Benjamin and sons
...was reared in the family of Reuben Thorpe, and after attaining manhood made an improvement on the bottoms below the mill owned by Potter. He afterwards cleared up the farm which is now owned by his youngest son Robert. Other sons were Eli, Amos P. (a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church), Reuben, Christmas, and Robert. Nearly all of these continue to reside in the township... On the same stream the manufacture of splint chairs is carried on by George P. Potter. The factory has been in successful operation since 1860, and several hundred fine chairs are made annually. Below that point, also on Meadow Run, Reuben and Christmas Leonard carry on a split-chair factory and more than sixty years ago their father, Benjamin Leonard, carried on this industry in the township, some of the chairs he made being yet in use.
They are mentioned in the 2000 tourism book, The Explorer's Guide to the Youghiogheny River Gorge, Ohiopyle, & S.W. Pennsylvania's Villages, authored by by Marci McGuinness and Bill Sohonage.
When the federal census of 1860 was taken, Sarah and Benjamin and their eight children were marked in Fayette County, and received their mail through the Farmington post office. Benjamin's occupation was recorded as "farmer" and eldest son Amos's was shown as "carpenter.
~ Manufacturing Split Rail Chairs ~
Starting in about 1830, when Leonard was age 24, he started the chair manufacturing business on his farm, in a log cabin. Later he was joined by a son and son-in-law and the firm continued until about 1900. They specialized in rocking chairs and ladderback chairs, but also constructed bedsteads, wheelbarrows, oxen yokes and children's coffins. The men also mended wooden wagons and wagon-wheels for neighbors and friends.
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| Above: the family chair shop on display in the Pennsylvania State Museum. Below, the Leonards' original log building of the shop. Courtesy Mindy Leonard |
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Their most important tool was a wood-turning lathe in the rear of the shop. It held special cutting chisels and when rotated rapidly on their lathe, powered by water from nearby Meadow Run, they could shape square logs into spindles, bed posts and chair legs. A set of wooden impulse wheel and bevel gear worked together to transmit power from a vertical to horizontal axis and was lubricated by tallow. Benjamin kept an account book from 1835 to his death in 1876.
Some years after the business ended, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania acquired the contents of the cabin and moved them to Harrisburg, where they have been on exhibit in the Pennsylvania State Museum, a display known as "The Leonard Chair Shop." Today the only visible remnants of the business at the site is a long stone fence at an angle, but not parallel, to the Run.
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| Above: work bench and wooden gears and lathe from the Leonard Chair Shop. Courtesy Mindy Leonard. Below: Russell "Rusty" Leonard at the stone wall ruins of the original chair shop along Meadow Run, 2025. |
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~ Donating Land and Labor for Meadow Run Church ~
That same year of 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, the Leonards donated land for and helped construct a small Methodist church on their property, under the direction of Rev. Joseph Hill. They placed it on the edge of a field, along the bend of a country road along Meadow Run. The deed was not recorded for nine years, until Nov. 16, 1869, naming original trustees Cyrus Edmundson, Ruben Leonard, George Perry Potter, John B. Potter and Joseph Stark.
Benjamin gave of his time for many years as superintendent of a Sunday school at that church, "which is at present in charge of Arthur Potter, and which is usually attended by about sixty scholars," said the 1882 History of Fayette County. "The Rev. A.P. Leonard, of the Pittsburgh Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, originated from this society, which, though weak in numbers, has some active, faithful workers."
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| Meadow Run Community Church, built 1860, as seen in 2025 |
The original sanctuary was renovated in 1900 by Frank Rholfe, and new pews were fashioned by Hampton Potter. Electric lights replaced oil lamps circa 1935, and in 1949, the church was covered with shingle siding and new floor was laid. A strip of land was donated by William Wable and another by Hazel Leonard to enlarge the yard behind the church and make its dimensions 99 feet square.
The building has survived for 165 years, including after the tract of land surrounding the building was acquired by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of Ohiopyle State Park. The congregation today is known as the Meadow Run Community Church. It has hosted many Leonard family reunions over the years.
~ Later Years in the Family ~
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Graves of young brothers Isaac and Samuel Leonard at Irwin Memorial Cemetery |
By 1870, all but two of the Leonard children had moved out of the family home. The census-taker listed Sarah and Benjamin as living in Stewart Township, Fayette County, with their post office at Connellsville. Daughter Mary (age 21) and son Robert (15) were the only two offspring to remain at home that year, along with seven-year-old Wilbur E. Dickson (connection unknown). That year, living just a few households away was the Leonards' future son in law, Civil War veteran George Perry Potter and his first wife Elmira.
In politics, Benjamin was Republican.
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| Above: The 1872 Atlas of Fayette County shows the cluster of Leonard and Potter farms in the Belle Grove District south of Ohio Pyle. Below: the narrows of Meadow Run. |
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Sadly, Sarah died on Aug. 18, 1876, at the age of 66. The cause of her untimely passing is not known.
Benjamin only survived his wife by six months. He surrendered to the angel of death on Feb. 12, 1877, at the age of 71. Her and his grave markers were still legible when photographed in May 2001.
They are buried at the Irwin Memorial Cemetery (formerly known as Thorp's Graveyard and Belle Grove Cemetery) near Ohiopyle.
Benjamin's sons Reuben and Christmas "kept his business going long after his death," noted a history.
In the late 1880s and early 1900s, Sarah's nephew and genealogist Allen Edward Harbaugh chronicled the Leonards' family details in a hand-lettered genealogy portfolio. The fragile page lists all 11 of their children and details about their lives, perhaps the only known place where these precious facts are recorded for posterity.
Circa 1978, the Amos Potter Leonard history of the family was retyped and expanded by Benjamin and Sarah's great-granddaughter, Ruth E. (Manley) Miller. A copy of this document is preserved in the Minerd.com Archives.
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| Irwin Memorial Cemetery |
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