Gone for Soldiers: Isaac Leonard (About 1790 - 1862), Soldier, Part II

As we discovered in an earlier post, Isaac Leonard served as a private in Captain Asal Power's company of New York Militia in Jefferson County during the War of 1812.

[Ancestry.com. New York, War of 1812 Payroll Abstracts for New York State Militia, 1812-1815 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: 2013. Original data: War of 1812 abstracts of payrolls for New York State militia ("payroll cards"), 1812–1814. Series B0810 (23.5 cu. ft.). New York (State). Adjutant General’s Office. New York State Archives, Albany, New York.]

But this appears to be the only militia record for Isaac which covers less than a month of service, so I wondered what was going on at that time. Although there had been several battles at Sacket's Harbor (on Lake Ontario) in Jefferson County earlier in the war, histories didn't note any actions during the period between October 12 and November 8, 1814.

[Sackets Harbor, NY during the War of 1812. U.S. Naval Historical Center]

But persistence paid off and I found a county history published in 1854 that explains the situation.

 

[A history of Jefferson County in the state of New York by Franklin Benjamin Hough, 1822-1885.

Publisher Albany, J. Munsell; Watertown, N.Y., Sterling & Riddell, 1854. Source: Internet Archive..]

Using that information I was able to find this contemporary newspaper report published in the Paris, Kentucky, Western Citizen.

[Saturday, November 5, 1814   Paper: Western Citizen (Paris, Kentucky)   Volume: 7   Issue: 41   Page: 2. This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004.Source: GenealogyBank.com]

The war ended in December 1814 with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, although that wasn't known until several months later.

There's now a state park at Sackets Harbor.


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