The Leonids are usually not exceptional viewing, even at the peak. But every now and again they put on a spectacular extravaganza of a display.
Here is an
engraving of the 1833 Leonid meteor shower by Adolf Vollmy, based on a painting by Karl Jauslin
which, in turn, was based on a first-person account of the 1833 storm by a minister, Joseph Harvey Waggoner, who saw the 1833 shower on his way from Florida to New Orleans. In that famous shower, hundreds of thousands of meteors per hour were seen! It was the first meteor storm of modern times. [Eleanor Imster, EarthSky]
In 1966 North Americans got a display numbering 100,000 shooting stars per hour. There have been other pretty special Leonid showers since then - though I've never seen one - but nothing like the 1966 storm.