1859-1943
Adoniram Judson Leach
Methodist Pastor/Life Saver MA/MA
When Adoniram Judson Leach was born on 4 May 1859, in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, his father, Dr William Leach, was 37 and his mother, Abby Alice Marshall, was 38. He was number 9 of 12 children born to this couple. A. J. Leach graduated from Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, NJ, in 1882 and married Mary Foster Lewis on 24 December 1883, in Washington D.C. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 1 daughter.
For ten years, 1885-1895, Leach served as pastor to Methodist congregations in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. In 1896 he became the state agent for the Humane Society of Massachusetts. In 21st century parlance we would imagine the Humane Society as being the organization interested in the welfare of dogs, cats and other domestic pets. Not so in the 19th century. The Massachusetts Humane Society was founded in 1786 by a group of Boston citizens who were concerned about the needless deaths resulting from shipwrecks and drownings and wanted to find ways to save lives. This Society became the model for the United States Life-Saving Service funded by Congress in 1848 and operated as the United States Coast Guard since 1915.
This news article appeared in 1914 to shed some light on the life of Adoniram Judson Leach.
A very pretty home wedding took place yesterday at 2 o’clock at the home of Mr. and Mr. John H. Bryans, when Miss Mary Kennedy became the bride of Adoniram Judson Leach of Reading. The house was prettily decorated with laurel, peonies and roses, all the decorations being pink and white… Mr. Leach is state agent for the Massachusetts Humane Society.[1]
Thus at age 55, Adoniram Judson Leach married and the next year watched his Massachusetts Humane Society become the United States Coast Guard. He died on 14 January 1943, in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the age of 83.
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[1] “Hampshire County, Enfield, Kennedy-Leach Wedding,” Springfield Republican, Springfield, MA, June 25, 1914, p. 19.