♂John Leavitt

John Leavitt (died by 27 January 1691/2) was an inhabitant of Hingham, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, who made his will there in 1689, naming nine children and two grandchildren. He was the eighth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Moses Leavitt.

Will

John Leavitt made his will at Hingham on 30 November 1689, and on 27 January 1691/2^W “Sarah Leavitt the Executrix” presented it for probate at Boston. The will itself is dated “the thirty day of November Anno Domini sixteen hundred Eighty nine”, and its witnesses were Matthew Cushing, Enoch Whiton and Sarah Lobdell, who made her mark. It names “my said nine children and two Grandchildren”: the sons Samuel, Israel, Moses, Josiah and Nehemiah; the daughters Sarah How, the wife of Samuel How, Mary Bate, the wife of Benjamin Bate, Hannah Loring, the wife of Joseph Loring, and Abiel Lazell, the wife of Isaac Lazell; his grandson John Leavitt, the son of Israel; and his grandson Samuel Judkin. The Hingham town records, as indexed, show a daughter Elizabeth, not named in the will, marrying Samuel Judkin in 1667, and Savage’s genealogical dictionary makes the grandson her son.

The will also disposes of shares in two tracts of land bought from the Indians beyond Providence. As the transcript reads, John Leavitt, Captain Joshua Hobart, Lieutenant John Smith and Nathanael Baker had bought a tract fifteen miles square called “Twenhe”, near the Narragansett country, of which he held an eighth part, and a second tract of six miles square called “Pennycooke”, of which he held a third part. He left his rights in both to the nine children and the two grandchildren in eleven equal shares, and told them to divide the land among themselves at their own cost. He also named five men, among them Daniel Cushing and Matthew Cushing, to advise his executrix and to divide the rest of his estate.

The will gives no residence for Moses or for any of the other children. The identification of this Moses with Moses Leavitt of Exeter, in the Province of New Hampshire, who married Dorothy Dudley in 1681, rests on his being the only Moses in the will and on the genealogical dictionaries, which make the Exeter man a son of John Leavitt of Hingham; no record yet joins the two.

Hingham

Savage’s genealogical dictionary of New England settlers, in its volume of 1861, places him at Dorchester in 1634 and then at Hingham, where he took the freeman’s oath^W on 3 March 1636. The History of the Town of Hingham, published in 1893 from the town records, agrees that he was at Dorchester in 1634 and adds that he received a house lot at Hingham in 1636. That history calls him a “tayler”, and a history of Maine families published in 1909, which has him reaching New England about 1628 at about twenty years of age, also calls him a tailor. Savage and the 1893 history both make him a deacon and a representative of the town in the General Court^W, in 1656 and 1664. The 1893 history says he was a selectman for many years, and the 1909 history places his service in several years between 1661 and 1675.

He died on 20 November 1691, aged 83, as Savage, the 1909 history and the 1893 history all give it, and a little over two months later his widow presented his will for probate at Boston.

Two marriages

John’s first wife, whose name the Hingham records do not give, died on 4 July 1646, according to both the 1893 and the 1909 histories. On 16 December 1646 he married Sarah, whose family is not known. The 1893 history gives the first marriage five children, and of them only Samuel, who later moved to Exeter, is named in the will; Elizabeth, who married Samuel Judkin in 1667, is the mother of the grandson who is. The other eight children of the will were Sarah’s: Israel, Moses, Josiah, Nehemiah, Sarah, Mary, Hannah and Abiel, whom the 1893 history dates from 1648 to 1667, with the married names of the four daughters matching those in the will. The 1909 history divides the children the same way, but writes the youngest daughter Abigail where the will and the 1893 history have Abiel. Savage had given all the children to Sarah, though with some doubt.

Savage, the 1893 history and the 1909 history all date Sarah’s death to 26 May 1700. The 1893 history gives her only as “Sarah”; later compilers, among them a Fish family history published in 1948, call her Sarah Gilman, but no record names her family.