Lieutenant Thomas Leffingwell
Name has been spelled Leafphingwell, Levingwell, Lephingwell, Lefingwell, Leapinvill, Lepingwell, Leppingwell, Leapingwell
Born: ca. 1623 England
Died: 1714 Norwich, Connecticut
Buried: Founders Cemetery, Norwich, CT
Married:
Mary White(?) by 1648(?) probably in Saybrook, Connecticut. There is a story that Thomas returned to England to marry, but no evidence to back it up.
Biography: About the year 1637, only a short time after the first settlement of New England, there appears among the forests of Connecticut a young hunter calling himself Thomas Leffingwell. The prototype, perhaps, of Cooper's Deerslayer, he was even at that early day on friendly terms with the Mohegan Indians, and especially their young chief Uncas; nor is it improbable, that occasionally he lived among them, acquiring their language and sharing their adventures. Very dim, however, are the glimpses which we then obtain of him. He was gifted, tradition tells us, with unusual physical strength, which, for a time at least, appeared in his descendants; he was endowed, as we know, with that courage