Leake, Andrew W.

Andrew Leake, a younger son with few prospects for property ownership, immigrated from either Scotland or England to New Jersey around 1753. Leake became a large property owner and by 1760, owned and operated mills (probably grist mills), a general store, and a cooperage in Bromley (now Burnt Mills), Somerset County. Around this time period he also built mills and another store six miles away in what he probably named New Bromley, Hunterdon County. In 1763, however, Leake tried to sell the two sets of mills and general stores along with his land and residence in Bromley with the intention of moving to New York. The following year, he again offered the Bromley property for sale, this time at public vendue. The sales, however, seem to have been unsuccessful, and in 1765 Leake became insolvent with the result that a year later his assignees, William Axtill, John Taylor, James M'Evers, and Cornelius Low, Jr., sold off his real and personal property. In 1767 or 1768, Leake left New Jersey, and either headed for New York or Saint Thomas in the West Indies, where he soon died of yellow fever.