Lieut. Samuel Leavitt (April 7, 1641 – August 6, 1707) was an early colonial American settler of Exeter, New Hampshire, one of the four original towns in the colony of New Hampshire, where Leavitt later served as a delegate to the General Court as well as Lieutenant in the New Hampshire Militia, and subsequently as member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. The recipient of large grants of land in Rockingham County, Leavitt held positions of authority within the colonial province.
Life
Leavitt first appeared in Exeter in 1664, where he was granted 15 acres (6 ha) of land by the town. Three years later, in 1667, he bought a home and barn and 7 acres (3 ha) of land from his father-in-law John Robinson. In 1668, Leavitt was granted another 20 acres (8 ha) of land by the town, and in 1670 was granted an additional 50 acres (20 ha). In 1675 the records reflect that Leavitt was granted 300 acres (121 ha) more, and a year later was granted 6 acres (2 ha) more. In 1697 Leavitt received a grant for 20 acres (8 ha), and 100 acres (40 ha) more the following year, by which time his children were receiving their own grants of land in the town.
In 1652 Samuel Leavitt's father John Leavitt, then living in Hingham, Massachusetts, had been granted 200 acres (81 ha) in Exeter. There is no evidence that John Leavitt, father of Samuel, ever settled at Exeter – but both his sons eventually did; his son Moses Leavitt married Dorothy Dudley, daughter of Exeter's minister Dr. Samuel Dudley; his son Samuel married Mary Robinson, daughter of John Robinson, who was an early settler of Ipswich, Massachusetts and later an early Exeter settler. (Samuel and Moses Leavitt were half-brothers.)
As one of Exeter's earliest settlers, Leavitt was an early enforcer of town rules. In March 1673, for instance, he and John Wedgewood were charged with seizing any person who violated an order allowing new residents to cut 1,000 white oak pipe staves within a year. For their pains, the two were allowed to keep half the seized staves for themselves.
Samuel Leavitt eventually began to assume powerful positions within the state. In 1690 he was named to represent the town of Exeter at a convention of state deputies to assess the Province's relationship with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (The reason for the meeting was the attempt by John Mason, the royal patentee of New Hampshire, to try to transfer his claim to a London merchant.) Leavitt is listed in this and subsequent documents as Lieutenant Samuel Leavitt, indicating that he was of some stature in the community by virtue of his leadership of the local militia. Left without a functioning government, New Hampshire voted to renew its association with Massachusetts until His Majesty's government in London was heard from.