•George Leith
b. ca. 1715-20, d. 1768 Frederick Co., VA. He md. in the 1740s Miriam ______, b. probably in the 1720s and was living as late as 1775. George apparently used the Leeth spelling of the surname and used this spelling in signing his 1768 will.
George Leith came with his family to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the early 1730s. He is named, just as his father, on Hite and McKay's list of January 1736 of the earliest settlers on their survey of the land grant. This could be an indication that George Leith was already "of age" and eligible to be listed as a head oh a household. However, if Hite and McKay were eager to show as many settlers on their survey as possible, they may have used the names of all males over a certain age, perhaps 21, perhaps 18, perhaps even 16 or 14.
A number of early mentions are found of George Leith in the Orange, Augusta, and Frederick County Court Records. The earliest mention is found in the Orange County Order Books in October 1736. The county paid bounties for wolves killed the previous year in October of each year. George Leith received one pond forty shillings for one wolf's head, the certificate signed by Jost Hite. George Leith was named in 1745 to the Orange County Court, along with Adam Cunningham and James McKay, to view the road being built from Jobe's Mill to the Frederick County line.
His name first appears in the Augusta County, Virginia Court Order books in February 1747 as an appraiser of the estate of Abraham Drake. In 1748 he was a surety on the bond of Daniel Stover as a guardian of John Campbell's orphans. The same year he is named as executor of the will of John Wiley. He was added to the list of tithables in 1750. In May 1750. the Augusta Parish Vestry bound Margaret O'Neal, age 6, and George Wiley, age 3, orphan children of John Wiley, deceased, to George Leith. The first mention of George found in the Frederick County Court Order Books is in 1755 when he is given permission to operate a water grist mill on his property.
George Leith and his wife Miriam probably married in the mid-1740s. We do not know her maiden name at present.
George Leith bought a bond for title for 250 acres of land in 1748 from George Hoyle. Hoyle bought the bond in 1743 from William Burk, who received the bond from Hite, McKay, Green, and Duff in 1741. George Leith received full deed to the 250 acres from Lord Fairfax in 1750. The grant stated the land was in Augusta County at "Birk's Spring," but is believed to be in present-day Page County. Deeds involving adjoining land located this tract on Pass Run.
George Leith was entitled to an additional tract of land adjoining this property which he claimed as 300 acres when willed to his son George Leith Jr. in 1768. He had the property surveyed and entered about 1751 but had not yet received title to the property. In addition, George owned a third tract of land, his portion of the 200 acres of his father's land on Jeremy's Run.
George Leith's will was proved in Frederick County, Virginia on 2 November 1768, and names his wife Miriam and his brother Ephraim Leith as executors. He also named his seven children, six of whom were still living at home: Josiah, George, Ebenezer, Ann, Rachel, Elizabeth and Grace. By terms of George's will, his son Josiah was to receive the part of George's land which he divided with his brother Ephraim where Josiah now lived. This was evidently part of the 200 acres originally claimed and settled by George's father James Leith. George Leith Jr. was to receive 250 acres above the mill run, including the grist mill and stones. Ebenezer Jr. was to have 300 acres, the part below the mill run which included George Leith's homesite.
Miriam Leith outlived her husband several years and is named in a census of Dunmore County, Virginia in 1775, with three males, three females and two slaves. She was still living in 1781 when her five pound claim against the estate of George Leith Jr. was approved (Shenandoah Co.,Va Will Book B, pp 277-78). No further record or mention of Miriam Leith has been found.
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