A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for Abiel Leonard Jr.
"The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography", James T. White & Co., 1904, p. 87:
LEONARD, Abiel, P. E. bishop, was born at Fayette, Mo., June 26, 1848, son of Abiel and Jeanette (Reeves) Leonard, grandson of Capt. Nathaniel Leonard who served in the war of 1812, and with his small command was captured by the British forces at Fort Niagara, great-grandson of Abiel Leonard, D.D., pastor of the Congregational Church at Woodstock, Conn., in 1774, who was appointed by Washington chaplain of his army, and served in that capacity until his death, and a descendant of James Leonard, a native of England, who settled at Taunton, Mass., in 1652, and is supposed to have been the first to engage in the manufacture of iron in this country. His father (1797-1863), a native of Windsor, Vt., was one of the most distinguished members of the Missouri bar, and served for a term upon the supreme bench. The bishop was educated in the preparatory department of Washington University, St. Louis, and was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1870, and at the General Theological Seminary, New York, in 1873. He was ordered deacon by Bishop Robertson of Missouri, and returning to his native state, he took charge of Calvary Church, Sedalia, Mo. On Nov. 4, 1873, he was ordained priest at Fayette, Mo., and after eight years of service in the diocese of Missouri, he became rector of Trinity Church, Atchison, Kan., where he remained until his elevation to the episcopate in 1888. While residing in Kansas he had a place upon nearly every important committee in the diocese and was dean of the eastern convocation and deputy to the general convention. He was consecrated bishop of the missionary district of Nevada and Utah, Jan. 25, 1888, Bishop Vail of Kansas presiding. In 1894 he received the degree of S.T.D. from the General Theological Seminary. At the general convention of 1895 his already large field of labor was increased by the addition of the missionary district of western Colorado but at the general convention of 1898 the area of his jurisdiction was lessened, his title becoming the bishop of Salt Lake. Bishop Leonard was married Oct. 21, 1875, to Flora Terry, daughter of Alexander H. Thompson of Sedalia, Mo., and he has five children, Ada Cameron, Sallie Thompson, Robert Leverett, Dorothy, and Margaret.
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