Notes for Leonard SHOUN
Leonard Shown, of northern VA, came south with his brother, seeking his fortune. In what is now Wythe Co., VA, he met his wife. In Oct/Dec 1792, this couple walked over the mountain "Barbara carrying their first son, unborn, and Leonard carrying an ax, a pick and a bundle of clothing." He was 19 and she was 17 years old. They produced 17 children who survived to adulthood and founded the community of Shouns Crossroads, in what became Mountain City, Johnson County, TN. A 12 foot tall fieldstone and concrete monument marks their graves there. Leonard owned a large homestead at Shouns, and a larger land grant on Doe Creek. (He obtained larger land grants from the government by operating an iron forge for production of pig iron.) Leonard owned several slaves, the best bottom land in the area, and a country store. He had goods hauled from Baltimore, a distance of nearly 400 miles which took 6 months for a round trip. His pig iron was hauled to Lynchburg, 225 miles away. When he died, at age 72, he was one of the wealthiest men in Johnson County.
Leonard was illiterate. He kept his own merchantile records using symbols. The story is that once he charged a customer for a cheese when the man had purchased a grindstone and Leonard had neglected to put a hole in the center of the circle. The men nearly came to blows before they reasoned out the explanation.
The Shoun family historian, Ed Miller has over 10,000 Shoun descendants in his computer. I estimate that he has found about one-quarter of the descendants of this couple.
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Revised: 27 Dec 2004 by Bonnie L Schermer