The late Leonard Case was the second child and oldest son of Magdalene and Mesech Case, of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. His mother, who was a native of Winchester, Virginia, was of German extraction, her maiden name being Extene. His father, believed to have been of English ancestry, was born in Sussex county, New Jersey. For nearly forty years Mr. Mesech Case suffered from asthma to the extent of making him a partial invalid, and hence much of the management of his affairs devolved upon his wife, a woman of superior character, educated beyond the average of those days, energetic, having good executive ability, and blessed with robust health. The family cultivated a small farm in Pennsylvania, which yielded but a moderate support, so that when news came of the land of rich promise beyond the mountains, where the soil yielded with an abundance marvellous in the eyes of those who painfully cultivated and carefully gathered in the older States, they collected their implements and stock, packed their household effects, disposed of the farm, and, crossing the mountains, settled down somewhere between the western foot of the Alleghanies and Pittsburgh. This, however, was not the land of promise. The reports they had heard in their Westmoreland home of the soil which produced crops almost without care, and which embarrassed by their abundant yield, came from still farther west, and again the Case household took up the line of march, settling down finally upon a farm of two hundred acres near Warren, Trumbull county, Ohio, in the year 1800. There were then five children in the Case household, Leonard, the oldest son, and the subject of this biographical sketch, being then sixteen years old, having been born in Westmoreland county, Penn., July 20th, 1784. In the invalid condition of his father, and being the oldest son of the family, young Leonard was compelled to take a prominent part in the management of the affairs of the farm. In the Spring succeeding the removal to Trumbull, he started out in search of working oxen needed for the Spring work. The task was a difficult one, and he traveled for some time, becoming much heated with the walk and the anxiety. On his return he had to cross a stream several times whilst he was in this heated condition, the result being the contracting of a severe cold which settled in his limbs and brought on an inflammation that confined him to his bed for months.