John Leavitt ( – November 20, 1691) was an English-born tailor, public official, and founding deacon of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, the only remaining 17th-century Puritan meeting house in America and the oldest church in continuous ecclesiastical use in the United States. Hingham's Leavitt Street is named for the early settler, whose descendants have lived in Hingham for centuries.John Leavitt's Family Gathers in Hingham for his 400th Birthday, The Patriot-Ledger, June 30, 2008 History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts, Vol. I, Part I, Historical, Published by the Town, 1893, Thomas Tracy Bouvé and others, University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1893
Biography Leavitt was born in 1608 in England, in Beverly, Yorkshire.History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts, Vol. II, Thomas Tracy Bouvé and others, Published by the Town, University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1893 Leavitt first appears in the annals of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, when he is shown in records of Dorchester, Massachusetts, as having been granted a house lot.John Levett, Oath of Freeman, Boston, March 3, 1635-6, Records Relating to the Early History of Boston, Boston Registry Dept., Municipal Printing Office, Boston, 1900 Within two years, the early settler had moved to nearby Hingham, where he was granted land in 1636. In his early history of Hingham, attorney Solomon Lincoln recited the oft-told tale of Leavitt's supposed origins:
"The family tradition concerning John Leavitt is that he was an indented apprentice in England," wrote Lincoln in 1827, "and that he absconded from his master and came to this country when nineteen years of age.... He received a grant of land in this town in 1636. His homestead was in Leavitt-street, recently so named, on both sides of the river."History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Solomon Lincoln, Jr., Caleb Gill, Jr. and Farmer and Brown, Hingham, Mass., 1837
In the same year, Leavitt took the Freeman's Oath of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In records on file at Boston Leavitt is shown on March 3, 1636, as pledging loyalty to the English Crown. In the early Massachusetts record the early English settler is listed as John Levett,Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, as the tailor apparently spelled his own name for several decades, until it became corrupted later in life.John Levett, whose English name became John Leavitt in America, and New Hampshire settler Thomas Levet, whose name became similarly corrupted to Thomas Leavitt, were the first to carry the name in America. The corruption in spelling, not unusual in an era of 'flexible phonetics,' distinguishes the American descendants from the original English family. Although the corruption into 'Leavett' was seen in England, the corruption into 'Leavitt' was not. The closest thing in English records was John Leavett, Gent., of Sussex, enrolled at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1590, who was alternately listed as 'John Levett.'
After moving to Hingham, Leavitt's first wife Mary died,The surname of Leavitt's first wife Mary is unknown, but it may have been Lovett. and he subsequently remarried at Hingham on December 16, 1646, Sarah Gilman, daughter of Edward Gilman Sr.,Searches into the History of the Gillman or Gilman Family, Alexander William Gillman, Printed by Elliot Stock, London, 1895 a fellow Hingham resident who later removed with his family to Ipswich, Massachusetts, and thence to Exeter, New Hampshire,Two of John Leavitt's children later removed to Exeter: son Samuel by Leavitt's first wife; and son Moses, child of John Leavitt and Sarah Gilman, whose father lived by that time at Exeter. where the Gilman family became well-known businessmen, statesmen and American patriots.New England Family History, Vol. III, Henry Cole Quinby, Office of Publication, New York, 1910 Sarah Gilman's sister Lydia married Daniel Cushing, who became Hingham's town clerk While serving as Hingham's third town clerk, Cushing kept a remarkable journal of goings-on in the town, which included notations on current gossip as well as the formal record of the town's events. Cushing's journal was later reprinted in a photographic format with reproductions of his pages in his striking penmanship. and John Leavitt's lifelong friend and, later, witness to his will.
Leavitt became active in Hingham town affairs, was named a Sergeant in the militia, as well as Deputy to the Massachusetts General Court from 1656–64, a SelectmanThe Genealogy of the Sprague's in Hingham, Hosea Sprague, Published by Hosea Sprague, Hingham, 1828 for the town in 1661 and many subsequent years, and then Deacon of the church, pastored by Rev. Peter Hobart, whose daughter Bathsheba married John Leavitt's son John Jr.New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vol. I, William Richard Cutter, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., New York, 1915Deacon John Leavitt's grandson Joseph Leavitt married Judith Hobart, daughter of Rev. Peter Hobart's son David and his wife Joanna Quincy, daughter of Edmund Quincy of Quincy, Massachusetts.
In between his public life and helping raise 13 children, Leavitt embarked on a lifelong pursuit of land, perhaps in recognition of its limited availability in his native England. By 1665, Leavitt and Lieut. John Smith,History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, 1622–1918, Vol. I, Louis A. Cook, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., New York, 1918 with whom he frequently collaborated in his real estate dealings, had secured on the border of Hingham and what is today Cohasset.A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, Edwin Victor Bigelow, The Committee on Town History, Press of Samuel Usher, Boston, 1898In return for their land grant, the town required Smith and Leavitt to pay the local Wampanoag Chief Josiah. That payment for the 12-acre grant, made exactly 30 years after Englishmen had settled Hingham, was considered sufficient recompense to the Indians for the entire township, which the colonists had never purchased. With Smith and Leavitt's payment to the Indian Sachem Josiah, the town considered the matter settled. Living nearby Leavitt's house lot in today's Hingham Center, located at some distance from the main village, was his friend Nathaniel Baker,Historical Collections, Being a General Collection of Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, &c., Relating to the History and Antiquities of Every Town in Massachusetts, John Warner Barber, Published by Warren Lazell, Worcester, Mass., 1848 who also often purchased real estate with Leavitt. The two men apparently enjoyed particularly warm relations with the local Indians. Deacon John Leavitt assisted in the burial of a local Indian chief, and Baker was fined 20 shillings for "entertaining an Indian or Indians contrary to a Town order."
Nearby Leavitt's home described as 'over the Delaware' (River) was the so-called Great Rock, an enormous boulder subsequently blown up in the nineteenth century for building material. Onto its granite face was incised, by an early settler, a large inscription noting the accomplishments of Hingham's earliest settlers. The inscription read:
"When wild in wood the naked savage ran, Lazell, Low, Loring, Lane, Lewis, Lincoln, Hersey, Leavitt, Jacobs, King, Jones and Sprague, Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, And were the first invaders of this country, From the Island of Great Britain, in 1635."
In keeping with the spirit of the inscription, and despite his own warm relations with the local Native American tribe, John Leavitt bought enormous tracts of land The Clapp Memorial: Record of the Clapp Family in America, Ebenezer Clapp, Printed by David Clapp & Son, Publishers, Boston, 1876 from the local Indians, for a meager outlay of cash.John Levet (eventually Leavitt), Hingham, MA, 1661 deed from Native Americans, Suffolk Deeds, Suffolk County, Mass., 1894 Leavitt made several such purchases during his lifetime, most lying in the so-called 'Narragansett country,' in the region south of Hingham near the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border. One such tract, fifteen-miles (24 km)-square, was purchased by Leavitt and his friends Capt. Joshua Hobart The land on which Old Ship Church stands was purchased by the town from Capt. Joshua Hobart. (twin brother of Rev. Peter) and Lieut. John Smith. In many such deeds, John Leavitt the settler is called 'John Levet' or sometimes 'John Levett' or even 'John Levit,' but rarely John Leavitt.
By May 3, 1680, when a town meeting was held to decide whether a new meeting house would be built upon the site of the old, John Leavitt was Deacon of the church, and one of the chief proponents for the new building.A Discourse Delivered to the First Parish in Hingham, Sept. 8, 1869, Calvin Lincoln, Published by the Parish, James F. Cotter & Co., Boston, 1873 Leavitt's speeches on the need for a new sanctuary ultimately proved persuasive. The Old Ship Church, so-called because the hammerbeam roof construction recalled that of an upside-down ship's hull, was completed July 26, 1681, when the townspeople of Hingham gathered on the knoll bordering on Bachelor's Row (now Main Street) to watch the raising of the frame of the new building.
Observing the festivities was Deacon John Leavitt, aged seventy-three, who had argued the need for the new wooden edifice. The Deacon's pew remains set aside today in the building, over 300 years later.John Leavitt's gravestone and remains are today in the graveyard at Hingham Center, not far from Old Ship Church. He was probably initially interred in front of the church, and was among the early settlers whose graves were moved when the road in front of the house of worship was widened, necessitating removal of the earliest graves, which were located in front of the church instead of behind it, where the church's current graveyard was later located. Leavitt's tombstone and remains were then likely moved to the Hingham Center cemetery, closer to the ancestral Leavitt home. Tailor John Leavitt died at Hingham November 20, 1691, at age 83. His voluminous will records the disposition of the extensive lands accumulated during his lifetime, as well as documenting the family and social connections that sustained him in the New World.Will (dated November 30, 1689) of John Leavitt, Deacon, at Rootsweb The executors of Leavitt's estate, named in his will, were his friend and brother-in-law Daniel Cushing Sr., Hingham's longtime town clerk, Capt. John Smith, Capt. John Jacob, Lieut. Matthew Cushing, and Daniel Cushing Jr.There was extensive intermarriage between the early Hingham families, and that was especially true of the Cushings and the Leavitts. There were Hingham residents named Cushing Leavitt -- and Leavitt Cushing.