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Sheppard C. Leakin

American politician (1790–1867)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ113297875 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sheppard Church Leakin (1790 – November 20, 1867) was Mayor of Baltimore from November 5, 1838, to November 2, 1840.

Early life

Sheppard Church Leakin was born in 1790, in Govanstown, Maryland (now Baltimore). His ancestors emigrated from Northumberland, England in 1684 and acquired an estate on the Patapsco River.

Career

Leakin enlisted in the 38th Infantry Regiment. He was part of the defense of Baltimore at the Battle of North Point and Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. He worked as a printer and was the proprietor of a bookstore in Fell's Point. He was a publisher for the Baltimore Chronicle, working with Samuel Barnes. He also became president of the Canton Company.

Leakin ran for sheriff of Baltimore County as a Republican. He served as sheriff from 1821 to 1824.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sheppard C. Leakin” is american politician (1790–1867). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sheppard, Leakin and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1790, 1867, 1838, 1840—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1790-01-01. For this dossier, Sheppard, Leakin and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american politician (1790–1867)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q113297875. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1790, 1867, 1838 and 1840.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sheppard C. Leakin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sheppard C. Leakin primary sources, Sheppard C. Leakin archive and Sheppard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sheppard C. Leakin”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sheppard C. Leakin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.