Benson Leavitt (21 June 1797–1 June 1869) was a Boston, Massachusetts, businessman, born in New Hampshire, who served as an Alderman of Boston, and later as acting mayor after the incumbent became incapacitated and died while in office.
Benson Leavitt was born at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, on June 21, 1797, the son of land surveyor Thomas [3] and his wife Hannah (Melcher) Leavitt.[4] Thomas Leavitt helped establish the Democratic party in New Hampshire, and helped lay out some towns in the northern part of the state.[5] Later, under President Andrew Jackson, the Democratic party came to control Hampton Falls, and Thomas Leavitt was chosen Town Clerk.[6]
In 1814, when Thomas Leavitt's son Benson was 17 years old, the future mayor served with 40 men from Hampton Falls who marched to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, then under threat of attack by British forces during the War of 1812.[3] Benson Leavitt later married Abigail Ward, born at Hampton Falls in 1801, daughter of Capt. Thomas and Abigail (Garland) Ward.[7]
Benson Leavitt and his wife subsequently removed to Boston, where he was a merchant,[8] often trading with other merchants in New Hampshire [3] and where he was elected an Alderman. Leavitt operated Leavitt & Company, fish traders, at a warehouse at Boston's Philadelphia Packet Pier.[9]
Leavitt also served as a director of the Granite Bank, a founder of the Fishing Insurance Company [10] and for several years was a Representative to the Massachusetts General Court from Suffolk County,[11] where he was a member of the Joint Committee on Fisheries.[12] Leavitt also served on the Boston School Committee for many years.[13]
Leavitt later served as chairman of the Board of Aldermen and – briefly – as Acting Mayor of the city after Mayor Thomas Aspinwall Davis became ill [14] and died while in office.[15]
On October 1, 1845, Mayor Thomas Aspinwall Davis wrote Board of Aldermen chairman Benson Leavitt from his home in Brookline. "Believing that time and care would restore my strength", Davis wrote, "I persevered in the hope that I might complete the term for which I was elected. But Providence has seen fit to order otherwise, and I find myself now, by great prostration of strength, quite unfit for service of any kind, either public or private. Under these circumstances it is a duty which I owe to the City as well as myself, to resign the office of Mayor."[14]
Thomas Leavitt and wife Hannah, parents of Benson Leavitt
But despite Davis's offer to resign, Boston City Council rejected the resignation, and the mayor was forced to remain in office until his death on November 22, 1845.[16] Benson Leavitt was subsequently named acting mayor.
Benson Leavitt was the uncle of author and reformer Franklin B. Sanborn,[17] who recalled visiting his uncle Benson at his home across the street from Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher's home in Boston's North End. (Rev. Beecher and Benson Leavitt frequently served on boards together, including that of the Boston School Committee).[18] On the visit, Sanborn made the acquaintance of Beecher's sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was "fresh from her success in Uncle Tom's Cabin".[19]
^City Council of Boston (1909), A Catalogue of the City Councils of Boston, 1822-1908, Roxbury, 1846-1867, Charlestown 1847-1873 and of The Selectmen of Boston, 1634-1822 also of Various Other Town and Municipal officers, Boston, MA: City of Boston Printing Department, p. 45
^ abWhig Party (1840), Answer of the Whig Members of the Legislature of Massachusetts, Constituting a Majority of Both Houses To the Address of His Excellency Marcus Morton, Boston, MA: Whig Party, p. 35
^Although Thomas Leavitt was considered a stalwart of the New Hampshire Democratic party, his two sons did not share the same convictions. Shortly after Benson and his brother Joseph removed to Boston, where they were business partners, both apparently became Whigs, and began sending Whig newspapers from Boston to their father in New Hampshire. The political split in the Leavitt family was mirrored apparently by similar political schisms in their relations, the Sanborn family of New Hampshire."'The Significance of Being Frank' by Tom Foran Clark". Archived from the original on 2008-10-10. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
^Benson Leavitt and his brother Joseph Melcher Leavitt removed to Boston at the same time, and first went into business together as partners. The two brothers subsequently owned an interest together in several ships sailing out of Salem, Massachusetts. Joseph Melcher Leavitt died in 1848.[1] His family later resided at Concord and Woburn after his death, and Leavitt's daughter eventually married her first cousin Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, and was the mother of Harvard graduate and promising author Thomas Parker Sanborn, who killed himself. The third brother in the Hampton Falls family was Anthony Brackett Leavitt, who went to California during the Gold Rush as a Forty-niner, where he was murdered.[2]
