♂Stephen Leavitt

Stephen Leavitt was a son of Moses Leavitt^W of Exeter, New Hampshire, almost certainly by his wife Dorothy Dudley, and the father of Mary Leavitt, the wife of Obadiah Smith, and of Daniel Leavitt. He died in 1755, a yeoman of the parish of Brentwood. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Mary Leavitt.

Records

No record of his birth has been found. His father’s will, made at Exeter on 31 December 1730, gave “my son stephen” half of eighty acres “on that side where his house now stands … lying upon deer hill plaine” and half of a hundred acres beside his brother Timothy’s, “Joyning to the little River”; a quarter-century later Stephen’s own will disposed of land by the Little River in Brentwood, the part of Exeter set off as a parish in 1742. The will does not name Stephen’s mother, who was already dead (his sister Dorothy was left “her mothers … Cloths”). Moses Leavitt’s only recorded wife was Dorothy Dudley, whom he married at Exeter on 26 October 1681, so she was almost certainly Stephen’s mother, though no record says so in words. Savage’s genealogical dictionary of New England settlers, in its volume of 1861, names a Stephen among the sons of Moses Leavitt and Dorothy Dudley. A family history of the Dudleys published in 1886 calls Mary Leavitt a daughter of Stephen Leavitt, “son of Moses, of Exeter, the surveyor”, and in another passage calls her father Stephen of Brentwood; a history of Exeter published in 1888 dates the setting off of Brentwood from Exeter to 26 June 1742. The Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (1928–1939) has Stephen, a son of Moses, living at Exeter and married at Kingston on 25 July 1726 to Mary Gordon, and says both were living in 1752 and had two or more children; it does not name the children. The Kingston church record confirms it: the Reverend Ward Clark married “Steven Leavit of Exeter and Mary Gordon” on 25 July 1726. A Stephen Leavitt is among the men allotted shares in Exeter’s common land in 1725, in the list printed in the 1888 history. A compiled Leavitt genealogy by Emily Leavitt Noyes (volume 1, 1941) likewise gives his wife as Mary Gordon, a daughter of Alexander Gordon, but dates the marriage at Kingston to 25 July 1725; the Gordon parentage rests on that compilation alone.

Will and death

The will of Stephen Leavitt of Brentwood, yeoman, was dated 26 April 1755 and proved before the province’s judge of probate on 16 June 1755, so he died between those dates, presumably at Brentwood. It names his wife Mary and two children. To “my well Beloved Daughter Mary Leavit” he left “two forty acre Lot[s] of Land” laid out by the town of Exeter in its division of the common lands, a cow and two heifers to be kept “so long as she remain unmarried”, a bed and bedding, a third of the indoor movables, and a privilege in the dwelling house “with her mother”. He made “my well Beloved Son Daniel Leavit” sole executor and residuary heir, and Daniel presented the will for probate. The will shows that Stephen had a daughter Mary, still unmarried in April 1755. Ten months later, on 5 February 1756, the Brentwood town book records the marriage of “Obediah Smith and Mary Leavitt”, who named sons Stephen, Timothy and Moses after her family; the only other Leavitt householder of Brentwood to leave a will then, Timothy Leavitt, left no daughter Mary in his will of January 1756. Together these make Stephen’s daughter the Mary who married Obadiah Smith, as the 1886 Dudley history had said without a record. A different Stephen Leavitt, of Stratham, a son of Moses Leavitt of Stratham and Sarah, made a will in 1749 naming a wife Alice and no children; he is not this man.

Lines of descent

Through his daughter Mary, Stephen was the grandfather of Anna Smith, who married Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844); as the Dudley family history and Savage’s dictionary show the lines, Nathaniel and Anna were both great-great-grandchildren of the Reverend Samuel Dudley of Exeter, and so third cousins.