Joseph Leech was a militia officer, politician, justice of the peace, and prominent businessman in colonial New Bern. In an undated petition, he joined others in asking royal governor Arthur Dobbs for aid in controlling an outbreak of disease that was then decimating cattle, threatening both beef and leather production. During the War of Regulation in 1771, Leech served as a colonel in the militia and approved several invoices for outfitting the troops. Later during the American Revolution Leech aligned himself with the Patriot cause, serving in the North Carolina Provincial Congress and later as a member of the Council of State from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786. In 1777 he submitted a wanted ad in the North Carolina Gazette for James Rawlings, a member of the Gourd Patch Conspiracy who had escaped the New Bern jail. He died in New Bern in 1803.