Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/699

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, and this led him to visit Williamsburg, \'irginia. The reports he received there were so favorable that he went on into the valley, and in 1726 01 1727 settled on the Shenandoah river, and was the first white settler in the lower val- ley of \'irginia.

Mueller was followed by Jacob Stover, a Swiss, who was one of the most enterpris- ing land agents of his generation. Stover would have made a stirring real estate agent in our own day. In June 17, 1730, he se- cured a grant of ten thousand acres of land on the South Fork of the Shenandoah. He took this up in two tracts of five thousand acres each — one between Luray and Elkton, and the other higher up between Elkton and Port Republic. In these grants the location is defined as being in Massanutting town. Mueller had secured no title to his land, being merely a squatter, so probably in 1730, and even before Stover had secured his title, he bought land from Stover. The condition of Stover's grant was that he was to put at least one family on each one thousand acres inside of two years.

On Alay 15, 1732. William Beverley, son of Robert Beverley (the historian), of \^ir- ginia, secured a grant of fifteen thousand acres on Shenandoah river at Massanutting, v/hich, however, was not to conflict with any previous grants. On December 12, 1733, Beverley took out a 'caveat against Stover, claiming that the lands held by Stover of right belonged to him. Prompt action was had upon this case, and in the same month Stover's title to his ten thousand acres of land was confirmed. This was probably largely due to the petition of Adam Muel- ler and seven associates, which recited that they had bought five thousand acres in Mas- sanutting from Stover about four years be- fore, paying him four hundred pounds ster- Img for the land, and naturally if Beverley's claim was sustained the\' would be home- less. These men were all Germans, and presumably all Germans from Pennsylvania.

Among these early settlers was the Harnsberger family, of which family Robert Franklin Leedy, of Luray (the subject of this sketch), is descended in one line, and which family, among numerous other promi- nent families of that section, claimed par- tial descent from Jacob Stover.

Colonel Robert Franklin Leedy was born at Leedy's Pump, near Harrisonburg, Rock-

ingham county, on July 28. 1863, son of John and Sarah Ann (Mauck) Leedy. John Leedy was a farmer, son of Daniel and Eve (Brower) Leedy, the former named also a farmer, and son of Samuel. The Leedy fam- ily came to the valley from Pennsylvania at a date which cannot now be definitely stated — but it was prior to tlie revolutionary war. According to the family tradition, the original immigrant was a German baron, who came over with Baron Steigle, and that a son or nephew of this first immigrant served in the revolutionary war as a lieu- tenant-colonel.

Daniel Leedy, Colonel Robert F. Leedy's grandfather, was born in Virginia in 1795, on a part of the "Dutch Lord" tract in Rockingham county, which tract of land is said to have been granted by George III. This, however, does not appear on the rec- ords, though several small tracts in Rock- ingham county are described as having been parts of the "Dutch Lord" tract. Colonel Leedy thinks, and this is probably the true explanation, that the turbulent conditions existing in the early revolutionary period caused individuals to lose sight of the im- portance of having their titles recorded in \\'illiamsburg, as the records there show none after 1774.

The Leedys were among these old Ger- man immigrants to Pennsylvania. The cor- rect spelling of the name was probably "Leidy," but on the old records which we have we find four or five different spellings. 'I'he first census of 1790 shows in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, Daniel and Andrew Ledy, as heads of families : in Northamp- ton county, Pennsylvania, Leonard Lidy, in Montgomery county, Conrad and Jacob Leyde ; and again in Montgomery county, Jacob, Jacob, Jr., and John Leydey. This was after the Virginia branch of the family had migrated from Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania family has given to America one of its greatest (if not the great- est ) naturalist in the person of Dr. Joseph Leidy, born in Philadelphia in 1823, and died there in 1891. He was a graduated physician, but after two years of practice he resigned to devote himself to teaching. He was professor of anatomy at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, and later at the Frank- lin University. He resigned to go abroad, and for years was engaged in foreign travel and the collection of specimens. In 1853 '^^