Leacock, John, 1729-1802

The goldsmith and silversmith John Leacock was born in Philadelphia in 1729 into a family of rising fortunes. His father, also named John Leacock, was an established pewterer and merchant and a vestryman at Christ's Church, and his mother, Mary Cash (first cousin once removed of Deborah Read Franklin), was a sister of one of the founding members of the prestigious fishing club, the Colony in Schuylkill.

Leacock was probably apprenticed in his early teens to either a gold- or silversmith, possibly Philip Syng, but regardless of how he entered the trade, success came rapidly to him. By the time he turned 23, he was earning a sufficient living to marry Hannah McCally, and after he received a sizable inheritance from his father in 1753, he removed to a new shop on Front Street, the heart of Philadelphia's silver and gold trade. Skilled in both metals, he advertised small swords, tea services, snuff and patch boxes, buckles, buttons, and a wide variety of other goods, as well as elegant silver plate. Helped, undoubtedly, by his kinship with brothers-in-law David Hall and James Read, not to mention the Franklins, Leacock found a ready market for his wares among the colonial elite of Philadelphia and his social stock rose accordingly. Signs of his increasing social standing include his signature on the 1754 petition to build St. Peter's Church, and his admission to membership in 1759 as the 88th member of the Colony in Schuylkill.

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