- Leonard Peter Reed (AKA L.P. Reed) (August 24, 1818 – January 19, 1884)
- Relationship: 3rd Great Grandfather
All research completed on the Reed Surname with our family begins (or ends) with Leonard Peter Reed in Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa. Leonard Peter is found in most records as L.P. Reed. Having multiple names to search for 200 years ago doesn’t make things any easier. Records indicate he was born in Pennsylvania on August 24th, 1818. No county, town, or parent and sibling information has been found for L.P. and the trail is cold trying to find any ancestry information beyond L.P. outside or before the state of Iowa.
In my view L.P. is the start of our Reed family. Something happened to cause separation from him and his family. He clearly made a life decision to leave his family and his past behind and he made an effort to either not discuss it and/or made sure no family documentation exists before him.
L.P. was one of the first settlers in the old town of Burlington. I discovered land patients issued to him for lot/parcels/acres at the time Burlington was settled. It’s not known if he was in Burlington at the time or if he purchased the land then moved at a very young age. When these land patients were issued is the first trace of information on L.P.
- (Insert Land Patients)
He married Henrietta Harris in Burlington Iowa and they started a family. Hetty or Hettie was born in Kuntucky. Like L.P., her records start with L.P. in Iowa and nothing can be found before. We do have hand written notes of her parents and found possible family members in Burlington but the records and names don’t match Hettie’s parents’. We also have some funeral service notes for Harris family members, but again, they don’t match Hetty’s notes on her parents.
- (Insert marriage info or census record with both Hetty and L.P.)
Because of the missing information with both L.P. and Hetty one could assume they met before their journey to Burlington or they arrived separately.
- (Need to make sure Ancestry has no census record with Hetty’s and her parents in Iowa)
That brings up the question of how we know about L.P. himself. We have Hetty and L.P.’s family bible with a little information. They took the bible to funerals and weddings. The bible contained loose information with obituaries and services visited in Burlington. The bible also contained Hetty’s parents’ names but nothing on L.P. This bible was clearly their bible because it has birth dates of all their kids and some grand-children. We also have Tal’s bible. They both provide genealogy notes to get to L.P.