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Leigh Read was a lawyer, and a hero of the Second Seminole War who was appointed Brigadier General of the Florida Militia by President Andrew Jackson. As the War wound down, Leigh Read became the leader and rising star of the Democratic Party in territorial Florida, culminating in his election as Speaker of the Florida Territorial Council in January 1840. He declined this honor, however, as he was recovering from an assassination attempt by the brother of a political opponent Read had killed in a duel. This brother later murdered Read. After his death in 1842, the Democrats in the Florida Territorial Council passed a bill that would have renamed Mosquito County, Florida as Leigh Read County. What happened to this bill - which some claim was passed, and there are maps from this time which record the area as Leigh Read County - is still unclear.

Isaac de Brierleigh "Leigh" Read was born on August 11, 1809 in Sumner County, Tennessee to William Henry Read (1766-1854) and Mary "Polly" Bledsoe (1778-1854). Polly was a daughter of Captain Isaac Bledsoe (1735-1793) and Katherine Montgomery (1752-1811). Capt. Bledsoe was a famous Indian fighter and Revolutionary War veteran, and Katherine Bledsoe is also one of the War's heroines, delivering communications packets amongst the patriots. The Bledsoes were pioneers of Sumner County.

Leigh Read moved to Florida at age 23, where he clerked for his mentor Richard Keith Call, friend of Andrew Jackson and later Florida's governor. Admitted to the Florida Bar in April 1833, Read was dynamic, charismatic and plunged into Florida's political scene. In 1833, he challenged Oscar White to a duel after White made derogatory comments about Read's mentor, R.K. Call. Both parties were injured in the duel but both recovered.

In February 1835, Read married Maria Theresa Bellamy, daughter of a rich plantation owner. Maria died a few months later in July.

One week after the Dade Massacre, an event which galvanized the attention of the country, Leigh Read was wounded in the Battle of Withlacoochee on December 31, 1835 and became a war hero.