Joshua Leavitt

[[File:Joshua Leavitt by Mathew B Brady & Studio circa 1860.jpeg|thumb|right|290px|Abolitionist editor and publisher Rev. Joshua Leavitt, photographed by Mathew B. Brady. Ca. 1860]] Rev. '''Joshua Leavitt''' (September 8, 1794, Heath, Massachusetts – January 16, 1873, Brooklyn, New York) was an American Congregationalist minister and former lawyer who became a prominent writer, editor and publisher of abolitionist literature. He was also a spokesman for the Liberty Party and a prominent campaigner for cheap postage. Leavitt served as editor of ''The Emancipator'', ''The New York Independent'', ''The New York Evangelist'', and other periodicals. He was the first secretary of the American Temperance Society and co-founder of the New York City Anti-Slavery Society.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/leavitt.htm |title=Leavitt, Joshua |access-date=2008-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060907042409/http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/leavitt.htm |archive-date=2006-09-07 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Biography== Born in Heath, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires, Leavitt attended Yale College, where he graduated at age twenty. He subsequently studied law and practiced for a time in Putney, Vermont, before matriculating at the Yale Theological Seminary for a three-year course of study. He was subsequently ordained as a Congregational clergyman at Stratford, Connecticut. After four years in Stratford, Rev. Leavitt decamped for New York City, where he first became secretary of the American Seamens' Friend Society, and began his 44-year career as editor of ''Sailors' Magazine''. Thus was Leavitt launched on his career as social reformer, temperance spokesman, editor, abolitionist and religious proselytizer.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=v8UdyMySRJwC&dq=%22joshua+leavitt%22+heath+massachusetts&pg=RA1-PA236 A History of the Churches and Ministers, and of Franklin Association, Theophilus Packard, Boston, 1854]</ref>

thumb|left|''The Emancipator'', an abolitionist broadsheet edited by Rev. Joshua Leavitt Leavitt was heavily involved in a series of high-profile anti-slavery cases, including the escape of the slave Basil Dorsey from Maryland into Massachusetts (Leavitt aided Dorsey's passage northward, and members of the extended Leavitt family helped shelter Dorsey in Massachusetts), as well as the ''La Amistad'' case, in which enslaved Africans on a Spanish ship rebelled and took control.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=5SwPAAAAYAAJ&dq=amistad+%22joshua+leavitt%22&pg=PA626 The Amistad Case (1839–1840), American History told by Contemporaries, Joshua Leavitt, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1901]</ref> Leavitt played a pivotal role in the ''Amistad'' events, when on September 4, 1839, he, Lewis Tappan, and Simeon Jocelyn formed the ''Amistad'' Committee to raise funds for the defense of the Amistad captives.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120805154813/http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/amistad/timeline.htm Amistad, Timeline of Events, National Park Service, nps.org]</ref>

One of Leavitt's major accomplishments was helping to provide the intellectual underpinnings of the abolitionist argument through his writing and publishing. In 1841, for instance, Leavitt published his ''Financial Power of Slavery'', a compelling document which argued that the South was draining the national economy through its reliance on slavery. He died in Brooklyn, New York, on January 16, 1873.

==''The Christian Lyre''== Leavitt published ''The Christian Lyre'' in 1830,<ref>Scan at https://archive.org/details/christianlyre00leav/</ref> the "first American tunebook to take the form of a modern hymnal, with music for every hymn (melody and bass only) and the multistanza hymns printed in full, under or beside the music". It later became one of the standard tunebooks used in the 1830s New England Revivalism movement.<ref>Crawford, p. 169</ref>

==Family== Rev. Joshua Leavitt came from a long line of religious figures.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/biographicalske03dextgoog/page/n559  Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Vol. II, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1896]</ref> His father was Col. Roger Leavitt, a wealthy landowner and Massachusetts legislator, and his mother Chloe (Maxwell) Leavitt. His grandfather was the Congregational minister Rev. Jonathan Leavitt, a 1758 graduate of Yale and pastor of Charlemont, Massachusetts.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oK5NAAAAMAAJ/page/n682  Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Vol. VI, Yale University Press, New Haven, Ct., 1912]</ref><ref>Roger Hooker Leavitt is interred at the Leavitt cemetery in Charlemont, Massachusetts</ref> The Leavitt family had ties to religious institutions since Joshua Leavitt's ancestor John Leavitt served as founding deacon of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, and his ancestor Rev. Thomas Hooker had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony to found the state of Connecticut.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/descendantsrevt00hookgoog/page/n304  The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker, Hartford, Connecticut, Edward Hooker, Margaret Huntington Hooker, 1909]</ref>

Rev. Joshua Leavitt's son William was a Congregational minister in Hudson, New York. Aside from Rev. Joshua Leavitt, other members of the Leavitt family were prominent abolitionists. The National Park service lists two Leavitt family properties in upstate Massachusetts – the Hart and Mary Leavitt House,<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/index.htm?SiteTerritoryID=129&ElementID=314& Hart and Mary Leavitt House, Charlemont, Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, National Park Service, nps.gov] </ref> as well as the Roger Hooker and Keziah Leavitt House – on its National Underground Railroad historic sites tour.<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/index.htm National Underground Railroad Network, The National Park Service, nps.gov]</ref> The entire extended family of Rev. Joshua Leavitt can be considered ardent – and active – abolitionist sympathizers.<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/index.htm?SiteTerritoryID=129&ElementID=316 Roger Hooker and Keziah Leavitt House, Charlemont, Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, National Park Service, nps.gov] </ref>

==Notes== [[File:Rev Joshua Leavitt Abraham Lincoln.jpg|thumb|right|225px|Letter by Leavitt, Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton and other abolitionists to Abraham Lincoln requesting raising of black regiments in Union Army, August 1862]] {{Reflist}}

==References== *{{cite book |author = Crawford, Richard |isbn = 0-393-04810-1 |publisher = W. W. Norton & Company |title = America's Musical Life: A History |url = https://archive.org/details/americasmusicall0000craw |url-access = registration |year = 2001 }} *{{Cite AmCyc|wstitle=Leavitt, Joshua}}

==Further reading== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100609041234/http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu/pdf/UGRR%20Guide%20Print.pdf The Road to Freedom: Anti-Slavery Activity in Greenfield, Greenfield Human Rights Commission, the Greenfield Historical Commission, starrcenter.washcoll.edu] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060213025725/http://www.npg.si.edu/col/amistad/ The Amistad Case, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.] *'' Joshua Leavitt, Evangelical Abolitionist'', Hugh Davis, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, La., 1990, {{ISBN|0-8071-1521-5}}

==External links== *[http://www.masshist.org/database/onview.cfm?queryID=1297 Portrait of Joshua Leavitt, Massachusetts Historical Society] * {{Gutenberg author | id=32528| name=Joshua Leavitt}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Joshua Leavitt}} *[https://archive.org/details/financecheappos00leavgoog  Finance of Cheap Postage, Joshua Leavitt, Secretary of the Boston Cheap Postage Association, Boston, 1849] *[https://books.google.com/books?id=nQh8jPYSaeAC&q=%22joshua+leavitt%22 The Christian Lyre, Joshua Leavitt, New York, 1833] *[https://archive.org/details/monroedoctrine01leavgoog The Monroe Doctrine, Joshua Leavitt, New York, 1863] *[https://archive.org/details/easylessonsinre01leavgoog  Easy Lessons in Reading for the Use of the Younger Classes, Joshua Leavitt, Keene, New Hampshire, 1830] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20060213025725/http://www.npg.si.edu/col/amistad/ The Amistad Case, The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leavitt, Joshua}} Category:1794 births Category:1873 deaths Category:People from Heath, Massachusetts Category:Religious leaders from New York City Joshua Category:Massachusetts lawyers Category:19th-century American newspaper publishers (people) Category:American male journalists Category:American temperance activists Category:Underground Railroad people Category:Yale Law School alumni Category:Yale Divinity School alumni Category:19th-century American Congregationalist ministers Category:Massachusetts Libertyites Category:Activists from New York City Category:Lawyers from New York City Category:Yale College alumni Category:Congregationalist abolitionists Category:19th-century American lawyers Category:19th-century American newspaper editors