{{Short description|Connecticut abolitionist and politician (1792–1872)}} {{Infobox person | name = Levi Yale | image = Levi Yale, postmaster, restored version.jpg | caption = Levi Yale | birth_date = April 11, 1792 | birth_place = Meriden, Connecticut, U.S. | death_date = February 19, 1872 | death_place = Meriden, Connecticut, U.S. | occupation = {{flatlist| * Farmer * Politician * Abolitionist }} | father = Joel Yale | mother = Esther Clark | spouse = Abigail Ellen Bacon | children = {{flatlist| * Harriet Ellen Yale * Emma Louisa Yale * Levi Bacon Yale }} }}
'''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.<ref name="record_new_haven">[https://archive.org/details/cu31924032285490/page/74/mode/2up Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven County, Connecticut], J. H. Beers & Co, Chicago, 1902, p. 73-74</ref><ref name="Yale geolo1">{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/yalegenealogyhis00byuyale/page/148/mode/2up?q=levi|author=Rodney Horace Yale|title=Yale Genealogy and History of Wales. The British Kings and Princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale|date=1908|publisher=Milburn and Scott company|website=Archive.org|page=148|language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref name="underground_ct">Strother, Horatio T. (1962). [https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr1962stro/page/116/mode/2up?q=levi Underground railroad in Connecticut], Wesleyan University Press, p. 86-117</ref> At 16 he began teaching school in the winter and farming his mother's land in the summer.<ref name="record_new_haven" /><ref name="Rockey, J. L. 1892 p. 656">Rockey, J. L. (1892) [https://archive.org/details/historyofnewhave00rock_0/page/655/mode/2up?q=levi+ History of New Haven County, Connecticut], New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 656</ref>
==Career== In 1821, Yale was elected a member of the Connecticut State House.<ref>[https://www.cga.ct.gov/hco/books/State_Officers_Members_CT_1776-1881.pdf Roll of State Officers and Members of General Assembly of Connecticut, from 1776 to 1881, p. 240]</ref><ref name="Rockey, J. L. 1892 p. 656"/> He was postmaster during the Jackson and Van Buren presidencies and was frequently elected as a town Justice of the Peace.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gillespie |first1=Charles Bancroft |last2=Curtis |first2=George Munsor |title=''An Historic Record and Pictorial Description of the Town of Meriden, Connecticut, Part II'' |url=https://archive.org/details/historicrecordpi00gill/page/n579/mode/2up?q=%22levi++yale%22 |publisher=Journal Publishing Company |date=1906 |page=121}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=YBl5jAUElBcC&q=yale&pg=PA23 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.</ref><ref>[https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/30002%3A21945629/datastream/PDF/download The Connecticut annual register, and United States' calendar, embracing the political year 1839, p. 33-108]</ref>
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.<ref name="Rockey, J. L. 1892 p. 546">Rockey, J. L. (1892) [https://archive.org/details/historyofnewhave00rock_0/page/545/mode/2up?q=levi+ History of New Haven County, Connecticut], New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 546</ref><ref name="hungerford">Hungerford, Edward (1877). [https://archive.org/details/centennialsermon00hungiala/page/54/mode/2up?q=levi+yale Centennial Sermons on the History of the Center Congregational Church of Meriden, Conn.], Case, Lockwood & Brainard Publishers, Hartford, p. 54-55</ref> Anti-abolionists attempted to prevent the meeting from being held and organized a riot when they were unable to stop it.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=UN4TAAAAYAAJ&q=levi+yale History of Wallingford], Charles Henry Stanley Davis, Harvard College Library, 1870, p. 503</ref> Stones and eggs were thrown at the attendees.<ref name="Rockey, J. L. 1892 p. 546"/> Levi Yale and two others acted as body-guards, protecting and escorting Reverend Ludlow out of the church.<ref name="hungerford" />
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."<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/image/675114261/?terms=%22Liberty%20Party%22%20%22levi%20yale%22&match=1 The Journal], 28 Mar 1900, Wed ·Page 5</ref><ref name="underground_ct" /> Fugatives found "food and harbor" at his farmhouse, and he helped conduct them from New Haven to Springfield.<ref>Louis J. Rocco (2020). [https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1610&context=masters_theses "Full of Light and Fire": John Brown in Springfield], University of Massachusetts, Boston p. 33</ref>
[[File:Yale & Bryan Co., Wholesale grocer, Edward Payson Yale, 1888.png|thumb|215px|The wholesale grocer store of Levi Yale's nephew, Edward P. Yale, named Yale, Bryan & Co., in New Haven, Connecticut, 1888]] 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.<ref>[https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/30002%3A22072369/datastream/PDF/download 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. 4</ref><ref>[https://ohiomemory.org/customizations/global/pages/transcript/view.html?alias=p16007coll84&ptr=4945&pg=4941 The Western Star]. (Lebanon, Ohio), 1841-10-15, Volume 36, p. 1, last column</ref>
In 1841, and from 1843 to 1849, Yale was the Liberty party candidate for lieutenant governor of Connecticut.<ref name="electionhistory.ct.gov">[https://electionhistory.ct.gov/eng/candidates/view/Levi-Yale Office of the Secretary of the State, Levi Yale, Past Contests]</ref> He was elected first selectman of Meriden from 1845 to 1848, and then from 1852 to 1855.<ref name="record_new_haven" /><ref>Rockey, J. L. (1892) [https://archive.org/details/historyofnewhave00rock_0/page/n107/mode/2up?q=levi+ History of New Haven County, Connecticut], New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 460-461</ref> In 1851 he lost the race for Meriden Judge of Probate. In 1856 he was again elected to the state house.<ref>Rockey, J. L. (1892) [https://archive.org/details/historyofnewhave00rock_0/page/n107/mode/2up?q=levi+ History of New Haven County, Connecticut], New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 90</ref>
Yale was a member of the committee that build Meriden's town hall and was among the officers that incorporated the Meriden Savings Bank.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=l_k3AAAAIAAJ&dq=%22levi+yale%22+%22meriden+savings+bank%22&pg=PA172 Special Acts & Resolves of Connecticut, Incorporating the Meriden Savings Bank, p. 172]</ref><ref>Rockey, J. L. (1892) [https://archive.org/details/historyofnewhave00rock_0/page/507/mode/2up?q=levi+ History of New Haven County, Connecticut], New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 507</ref> He was a Congregationalist and was among the members who formed Center Congregational after First Congregational moved to a new location.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Charles Henry Stanley |title=History of Wallingford |date=1870 |pages=234 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UN4TAAAAYAAJ&q=levi+yale}}</ref>
==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.<ref name="record_new_haven"/>
He was a great-grandson of Capt. Thomas Yale of Wallingford.,<ref name="Yale geolo1"/> 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.<ref>[https://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/yadkin-yarrow.html#147.74.00 Yale, Ira (1783-1864) — of Wallingford], Index to Politicians, The Political Graveyard, Database of American History, 2024</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yale, Levi}} Category:1792 births Category:1872 deaths Category:People from Meriden, Connecticut Category:Underground Railroad people Category:Members of the Connecticut House of Representatives Category:Connecticut postmasters Category:American justices of the peace Category:American abolitionists Levi