Centerbrook Farm. jessie Craig collection.

who gave the Leard boys 3 lecture on Sabbath observance told them to refrain from brushing their clothes, shining their shoes, and all such work on Sunday. The next Saturday evening Rev. Strong came to Tryon driving his beloved horse. He was put up at the Leard home in the Minister’s room off the parlor in the usual hospitable way. After breakfast and family prayers the next morning, Rev. Strong inquired as usual of one of the boys, ‘jimmy, have you groomed the mare?” “Oh no,” said Jimmy, “you said the last time you visited not to work on Sunday.”Jimmy, forthwith, to the mortification of his parents, received a strong lecture on necessary Sabbath work which many years later, when an old man with a twinkle in his eye, he vividly recalled.

This is theJames B. Leard who moved to the Tryon Crossroad, to a farm bordering the river’s west bank and laid the foundation for the n'bbon—shaped mile-and a—half long Centerbrook farm. The first farm— house was in what was called the lower-field. The water was carried from a clear spring at the river to provide for the daily requirements.James’s neighbours were Joseph Wood and John Thomas. Church records relate: Later with the Loyalists came the disbanded soldier of the Seventeenth Regiment of Foot, joseph Wood, who married Isabella Leard and settled not far from her parents in Tryon. Corporal john Thomas came to Tryon at the expiration of his service where he made a comfortable home.

Joseph Wood’s granddaughter, Harriet Wood, married James B. Leard's son, Stephen. The Leards and Woods were pioneering stock. They cut down the virgin forests and loaded the fine timber on barges that tied up at a small wooden landing on the river below the Wood’s farm. These barges floated the timber down the river to be loaded on

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