Levi Yale (April 11, 1792 – February 19, 1872), of Meriden, Connecticut, was a politician, abolitionist, and Underground Railroad agent. He held state and local elected offices and was appointed Meriden postmaster. He co-founded the abolitionist Connecticut Liberty Party and frequently ran as that party's candidate for lieutenant governor.

Early life Levi Yale was born April 11, 1792, to Joel Yale and Esther Clark, members of the Yale family.Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven County, Connecticut, J. H. Beers & Co, Chicago, 1902, p. 73-74 He was the oldest of a large family of children; at age 12 he became his mother's main support, following his father's death.Strother, Horatio T. (1962). Underground railroad in Connecticut, Wesleyan University Press, p. 86-117 At 16 he began teaching school in the winter and farming his mother's land in the summer.Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 656

Career In 1821, Yale was elected a member of the Connecticut State House. Roll of State Officers and Members of General Assembly of Connecticut, from 1776 to 1881, p. 240 He was postmaster during the Jackson and Van Buren presidencies and was frequently elected as a town Justice of the Peace.Green's Connecticut Annual Register and United States Calendar, The Connecticut Register, State Calendar of Public Officers and Institutions in Connecticut for 1857, High Water for New York, F. A. Brown, Press of Case Tiffany and Company, 1857, p. 38.The Connecticut annual register, and United States' calendar, embracing the political year 1839, p. 33-108

In the fall of 1837, Yale, Elisha Cowles, Julius Pratt, and others, invited abolitionist lecturer Rev. Henry G. Ludlow to speak at the Center Congregational church in Meriden.Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 546Hungerford, Edward (1877). Centennial Sermons on the History of the Center Congregational Church of Meriden, Conn., Case, Lockwood & Brainard Publishers, Hartford, p. 54-55 Anti-abolionists attempted to prevent the meeting from being held and organized a riot when they were unable to stop it.History of Wallingford, Charles Henry Stanley Davis, Harvard College Library, 1870, p. 503 Stones and eggs were thrown at the attendees. Levi Yale and two others acted as body-guards, protecting and escorting Reverend Ludlow out of the church.

Yale's home was a station of the Underground Railroad, and he has been described as "a man of very pronounced views against slavery, and one who had the courage of his convictions."The Journal, 28 Mar 1900, Wed ·Page 5 Fugatives found "food and harbor" at his farmhouse, and he helped conduct them from New Haven to Springfield.Louis J. Rocco (2020). "Full of Light and Fire": John Brown in Springfield, University of Massachusetts, Boston p. 33

In 1841, Yale co-founded the Connecticut Liberty Party, presiding at the Political Anti-Slavery Convention that established the party in the state and nominated its first candidates. As president of the convention, he wrote, signed and published in newspapers a letter requesting the President of the United States, John Tyler, to emancipate his slaves.Charter Oak : Free Principles, Free Men, Free Speech and a Free Press, Executive Committee of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society, Hartford, Vol. IV., No. 6, October, 1841, p. 4The Western Star. (Lebanon, Ohio), 1841-10-15, Volume 36, p. 1, last column

In 1841, and from 1843 to 1849, Yale was the Liberty party candidate for lieutenant governor of Connecticut.Office of the Secretary of the State, Levi Yale, Past Contests He was elected first selectman of Meriden from 1845 to 1848, and then from 1852 to 1855.Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 460-461 In 1851 he lost the race for Meriden Judge of Probate. In 1856 he was again elected to the state house.Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 90

Yale was a member of the committee that build Meriden's town hall and was among the officers that incorporated the Meriden Savings Bank.Special Acts & Resolves of Connecticut, Incorporating the Meriden Savings Bank, p. 172Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 507 He was a Congregationalist and was among the members who formed Center Congregational after First Congregational moved to a new location.

Personal life

Levi Yale was married to Abigail Ellen Bacon, of Middletown, Connecticut. They had three children together, two daughters, Harriet Ellen and Emma Louisa, and a son named Levi Bacon Yale. Levi B. was a Republican, Prohibition candidate, nominated for Senator in the 6th District in 1900, and was an active member of the Congregational Church.

He was a great-grandson of Capt. Thomas Yale of Wallingford., and his uncle, Thomas Yale, was a soldier during the American War of Independence. He was a cousin of Congressman Jonathan Brace and Aetna life insurance founder Thomas Kimberly Brace, as well as of Senators Kenneth S. White and John Baldwin.Yale, Ira (1783-1864) — of Wallingford, Index to Politicians, The Political Graveyard, Database of American History, 2024

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