Elisha Leavitt (1714–1790) was a
Hingham, Massachusetts,
Loyalist
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
landowner who owned several islands in
Boston Harbor. During the
Siege of Boston
The siege of Boston (April 19, 1775 – March 17, 1776) was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town ...
in 1775, Leavitt encouraged British forces to use one of his islands to gather hay for their horses, triggering one of the first skirmishes of the
American War of Independence
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, The Battle of
Grape Island (or Grape Island Alarm). This encounter followed the
battles at Lexington and Concord by a month, and preceded the
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...
by less than a month.
Life
Elisha Leavitt was born at Hingham on March 1, 1714, the son of Elisha Leavitt Sr. and the former Sarah Lane, daughter of Ebenezer Lane. He was married to the former Ruth Marsh, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Burr) Marsh, with whom he had four children.
Elisha Leavitt was a successful businessman and landowner in Hingham. In 1771 Leavitt purchased one of Hingham's landmarks, the old Thaxter Mansion built in 1652, which had tapestried walls, elaborate painted murals, decorated door panels and large tiled fireplaces.
When Leavitt bought the home, it had been occupied by five generations of the Thaxter family, including Samuel Thaxter Junior, son of Col.
Samuel Thaxter Col. Samuel Thaxter (1665-1740), of Hingham, Massachusetts, was one of the most prominent and influential citizens in Plymouth, New England. He was a member of the commission to settle the boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1719. He ...
. (After Thaxter's death, his widow remarried Rev. John Hancock of
Braintree, and was the mother of the
first signer of the
Declaration of Independence.) The last Thaxter owner, Samuel Thaxter, moved to
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
Bridgewater is a town located in Plymouth County, in the state of Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town's population was 28,633. Bridgewater is located approximately south of Boston and approximately 35 miles east ...
in 1771 and sold the house to Elisha Leavitt.
By the time Leavitt bought the Thaxter Mansion, he was a confirmed
Tory, and he used a blind passage in the house, accessed by a secret door, to hide Tories from nearby
Marshfield when the local
Committee of Safety conducted a search for them. The Tories were later successfully smuggled by water to Boston.
Leavitt was an unlikely Loyalist. He began his career as a simple blacksmith, was named constable of Hingham, then launched himself on a career as a trader and entrepreneur, becoming a shareholder in the fishing company and engaging in navigation as a shipowner.
[History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts](_blank)
Vol. II, Thomas Tracy Bouvé, Published by the Town, University Press, Cambridge, 1893
Eventually Leavitt became one of the largest landowners in the region; among his holdings were several islands in
Boston Harbor, including
Lovells Island
Lovells Island, or Lovell's Island, is a island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, in Massachusetts. The island is across The Narrows from Georges Island and some offshore of downtown Boston. It is named after Captain Wil ...
, purchased by Leavitt from the town of
Charlestown in 1767,
Grape Island, half of
Gallops Island, and
Georges Island
Georges Island, or George's Island, may refer to:
Geography
*Georges Island (Massachusetts), offshore from the city of Boston, Massachusetts
*Georges Island (Nova Scotia), offshore from the community of Halifax in the Halifax Regional Municipali ...
. The islands were largely used for pasturage for cattle and horses and for raising hay. Leavitt had purchased Georges Island from Hannah Greenleaf in April 1765. Elisha Leavitt also owned land across the region, including substantial acreage at
Cohasset, the seaside town carved from Hingham.
Battle of Grape Island
During the so-called 'Provision War' at the outbreak of hostilities, as British officers struggled to find sympathetic citizens who would supply their army with food and drink, the Tory Elisha Leavitt stepped forward to offer British troops hay, vegetables and cattle. His actions infuriated locals passionate about the Continental cause. Leavitt's ownership of Grape Island then brought him unwelcome prominence.
Realizing that British officers needed pasturage for their horses during the
Siege of Boston
The siege of Boston (April 19, 1775 – March 17, 1776) was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town ...
in 1775, Leavitt offered them the use of Grape Island. But when British forces landed on the island in their
sloop
A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...
s, the alarm was sounded on the mainland. Shortly afterwards hundreds of militiamen from the South Shore assembled at
Weymouth, opposite Grape Island, and began firing on the British. Eventually the militiamen landed on Grape Island in
skiffs, forcing the British to flee. The angry colonists, in retaliation for Leavitt's actions, burned the wealthy Tory's barn to the ground and confiscated his cattle. "This glorified skirmish", wrote historian
Edward Rowe Snow, "has gone down in the history as the Battle of Grape Island."
The incident was closely watched by many observers in the Boston area, including
John Adams's wife
Abigail, who noted the "widespread confusion" in her hometown the day of the encounter – the closest the
American Revolutionary War had come to the Adams family residence. Abigail wrote to her husband on May 24, 1775: "...it seems their Expidition (sic) was to Grape Island for Levets hay." Abigail Adams praised several members of her husband's family, who were among the hundreds of Continental militiamen who drove off the British soldiers. "I may say with truth, all of Weymouth, Braintree, Hingham, who were able to bear arms, and hundreds from other towns within twenty, thirty, forty miles of Weymouth."
[History of the Town of Hingham]
Thomas Tracy Bouvé, Vol. I, Part I, Published by the Town, University Press, Cambridge, 1893
Following the Grape Island skirmish, enraged citizens turned up on the doorstep of Leavitt's mansion to set it alight or "for the purpose of doing violence to his person", according to the ''History of the Town of Hingham''. But the avuncular Leavitt averted trouble and defused the mob by rolling out a barrel of rum and "dispensing its contents liberally."
[
"The gentlemen aforesaid", says the Hingham history, referring delicately to the assembled mob, "were received by Mrs. Leavitt in elegant dress, and urged to walk in and partake of the wine. This unexpected and politic Courtesy disarmed the fury of the Whigs, and the threatened violence was drowned in good cheer."][
]
Later life and legacy
Unlike many Loyalists, Leavitt was never forced to flee the country, nor give up his substantial holdings. Whether his successful transition to the age of American independence was due to his personality, sheer pluck, or to a change of heart is unknown.
While Leavitt was one of Hingham's most visible Tories, his son Dr. Martin Leavitt, born in 1755, had different politics. A close friend and Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
classmate (1773) of Bela Lincoln of Hingham, Martin Leavitt practiced medicine until he died aged thirty on November 27, 1785, when he drowned in the town's mill pond.
Elisha Leavitt died in 1790 at his home on North Street in Hingham, not far from Leavitt Street, where Elisha's great-grandfather John Leavitt had settled in 1636.
At his death Leavitt willed ownership of Gallops Island to his grandson Caleb Rice, son of Col. Nathan Rice of the Continental Army
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...
, and former aide de camp to General Benjamin Lincoln, a Hingham native. Col. Rice had married Elisha Leavitt's daughter Meriel.History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts
Vol. III, Thomas Tracy Bouvé, Published by the Town, University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1893 Caleb Rice subsequently purchased the half of Gallops Island that his grandfather Leavitt did not own. Rice later sold the entire island to the government.
References
External links
A Forgotten Battle, Christopher Klein, The Patriot Ledger, May 17, 2008
Old Leavett Estate in Hingham, later site of the Catholic Church, (1860–1880)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leavitt, Elisha
1714 births
1790 deaths
American Loyalists from Massachusetts
Leavitt family
People from colonial Massachusetts
People from Hingham, Massachusetts