Archibald Franklin Leonard

Archibald Franklin Leonard, a native of Pennsylvania born in 1816, moved to Missouri in the 1830s, married Mary Ann Foster in 1839, and migrated with many neighbors to Texas in 1845. Awarded land in the Peters Colony, he settled near present-day Grapevine, where much of the city's business and residential areas later stood on land he once owned. His achievements in this part of Texas included active leadership in early area Baptist churches, opening the first civilian store in Fort Worth with Henry Clay Daggett, and serving as the first county clerk after Tarrant County was created in 1849. A prosperous businessman and farmer, he later represented Tarrant and surrounding counties in the Twelth Texas Legislature, helped lay out the town of Grapevine in 1855 two years after opening a mercantile store there, and in 1856 helped establish Leonard's Mill on the Trinity River, around which a community developed that later became known as Randol Mill. He served as part of the home guard during the Civil War and died at his home in Birdville in 1876.

Haltom City, Texas · United States