The Last Rebel of Wexford
William Leonard, a survivor of the 1798 Irish Rebellion, spent his final years in Seattle among the logging camps of the Skagit River.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As announced in our columns yesterday, the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church will be performed today over the remains of William Leonard. This William Leonard is the last link which connects this generation of his race with the terrible scenes of '98. A native of Wexford county, Ireland, he was 19 years of age when Father John Murphy in Wexford rallied the peasantry of his native county to resist the murderous outrages of the 'Ancient Britons,' who went to call the peasantry and honest men of the country to their doors and shoot them down in cold blood. Bands of the peasantry whose houses had been burned down were roaming the hills, among whom was William Leonard, and at length determined to intercept the Wexford cavalry militia, and, if possible, put a stop to their fiendish depredations. Throughout all the campaign of these few but bloody weeks, young William Leonard had his share both in victory and defeat. Arklow, Ballyellis and Vinegar Hill he did good work, and having escaped to his home, quietly settled down and watched events. Four years afterward he joined the abortive efforts of Robert Emmet, on the defeat of which the hopes of Irish liberty were abandoned for a generation. In 1824 he emigrated to Canada, from which he returned to Ireland in 1840. Again bidding farewell to his native land, he came to the United States, and after many years in the East, came to this Territory about eight years ago, where he has lived with his sons, who carry on an extensive logging business on the Skagit river.
“This William Leonard is the last link which connects this generation of his race with the terrible scenes of '98.”
While Seattle’s modern economy is driven by tech, in the 1880s it was fueled by labor-intensive industries like logging, which drew immigrants from across the globe. This story captures the city’s early roots as a frontier town where veterans of global revolutions lived out their final days in the rugged timber camps of the Pacific Northwest.
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