The Great Leverett

When I found this picture of John Leverett, President of Harvard, I decided to experiment with it as a new cover for Eighteenth Century Leveretts, a book that could be said to need a new cover. This is what I got, and it's acceptable except for a couple reasons. One is that the book is not solely about John the Younger; he was president of Harvard in the first quarter of the century but lots happened during the Revolution, too. The book is listed under "Biographies of Educators" but I'm considering rewriting it, making it wider, and showing how possibly he cast a shadow on the century, but didn't totally own it.

But then something happened. I pulled out a manuscript from the genealogical files and began to type it. It's by typing it that I actually read it carefully. This manuscript was 23 pages of legal-size, double-space treatise on the life of John, called The Great Leverett. It did not have an author or a date. Its typewritten nature, with some things changed by pencil afterward, suggested the early days of typewriters, when you didn't want to use a whole new piece of paper just because you got one letter wrong. It was full of such pencil marks. And the author clearly missed a few typos too; things like ot written for to, etc., things you don't always catch when reading.

The twenty-three pages focused mostly on the Leverett administration at Harvard, which had several controversial issues, and which was important in the history of Harvard. It did not list a compendium of sources but appeared to have most of the facts right; it wasn't careless research. It had very little about his personal life but a lot about his enemies and allies within Puritan Boston and the College itself. I realized that I knew much of it already from the research I have already done.

And this is where I got the idea to combine my personal knowledge with the outline of his professional career and write his biography. Actually I had that idea anyway, but delving into his presidency as I just did as I retyped the document, made me more sure that I could do that.

The problem is, the authorship of the document is still unclear. I am more and more convinced that it's Frank the geologist, who kept track of family issues, spent some time in Boston in the 1930's, and took an active interest in all things Leverett. Furthermore, Frank kept an active correspondence with my great-grandfather Will, so this document could very easily have been given to Will by Frank, or by relatives after Frank's death, all of whom knew that Will valued and collected family documents and historical information. For whatever reason, it ended up in Will's hands and thus came down to me.

I think it's important to note that back in those days (1930's), one didn't have copy machines, so if one wrote a small treatise on the career of one's distant ancestor, one didn't have many choices of what to do with it. This was true for Frank, apparently, or at least the writer as we know it. There is no record of The Great Leverett being published anywhere, or being online anywhere, that I know of. The information that he gathered, somewhat surface but correct, a good but unsubstantiated history of the early 1700's at Harvard, is only on that typewritten document and nowhere else that I can tell. If there is another copy of this document he would have had to type it out separately, though I'm not discounting that possibility. Since family genealogy was a hobby, not a profession, he didn't publish it, he simply kept it or passed it along to Will (his cousin).

I, however, can publish it, and that's because it's easy in the modern day, once you type it, and that's the best way to make the information available to as many people as possible. I want people to know what I've learned and I want his work to not be in vain, in the sense that though much of what he found out is public, it's not really collated anywhere that I know of or collected into a single book.

John Leverett was the father of secular (non-religious) education in the colonies, although Harvard wasn't the only school and wasn't the only place where his kind of reforms were catching on. He believed in diversity and enforced it, and by finessing a difficult situation involving a bequest from a Baptist, he was able to keep and use the money and at the same time keep the Puritan opposition at bay in the community, thus ensuring Harvard's survival and managing a difficult polarized political environment.

I will write about it, you'll see. It won't have the cover you see above. 18th Century Leveretts will have a different cover, yes, but John will have his own book, if I can pull this all off.

OK in a postscript to the post below, I found the magazine referred to online, and it even had the picture of John which I screenshotted and put here. It is my favorite picture of John, because he has more personality in it, but the online version is not as good as the one I have in my hands, so much more the reason to scan it myself, put it up, and get on with things.

It's interesting that such an old 1889 magazine is now in google books and freely available to everyone; this simply wasn't true about twenty years ago when I started looking into such things. It's a miracle of the modern day.

But I have the quotes, the wording, etc., just how I want it, and can now see the cover of the magazine.

Magazine of American History

Before me sits a crinkled old publication that actually falls apart when I pick it up. I feel the responsibility to carry on its contents before it is just distributed into pure air. Yet because it is so important I am having a hard time integrating it directly into my manuscript; I am currently rewriting Puritan Leveretts and needed it for this picture that it has of John in the front. I have not even scanned the picture yet.

When I opened it, I found several very important articles. All are history from about 1889, when it was published. It calls John Sir John Leverett, and makes the claim that he was knighted in 1676 by Charles I. Under the picture, though, the caption says that it was in 1686, and that's impossible, because he was dead. I should mention that both claims are possibly spurious. A later study felt that he was never knighted at all and that that must have been false information. It appears though that in 1889 it was widely believed that he was.

At least two articles in it are very important to me and worth literally poring over although I find myself unable to turn the pages without its falling apart. This makes me wonder if this magazine is not in fact digitalized and/or available in other reprinted formats. Maybe my first course of research should be whether I can find it in some digital format. But even what I read is so important that I have to write about it here before I can clearly transport it into my manuscripts. I might also work on typing the article(s) if I find that they are no longer available elsewhere.

It's an article about the founding of the Artillery in Boston that gushes about John and merits his picture being put in the front of the magazine. I suspect that the magazine was saved because of that picture, as it has "Sir John Leverett" written on the first available page which is not the cover, the cover having long ago been lost. The article about the Artillery says something about his "friendship with the General," in reference to the English Civil War, and from that I have to infer that he was friends with Cromwell himself and came home talking about it. I am not sure though: could that be someone else? I will provide the quote here. I will have to write it and rewrite it before I understand completely.

"...The history of Sir John Leverett, the last of the early commanders above mentioned, is comparatively well known. The story of his early life in Boston, his return to England to serve under Cromwell in the struggle against his King, how he gained the friendship of the great Puritan general and was made commander of a company of foot-soldiers, has been many times told. His subsequent life in America, however, is of more importance to the student of colonial history than the stirring events of his career in Europe. Three times (1652, 1663, 1670) he was elected commander of the artillery company, and he was successively a delegate to the general court, one of the governor's council, major-general of the militia, deputy-governor, and governor of the commonwealth, all the while retaining his membership in this "ancient" organization." The ease and skill with which he transacted the public business and the ability displayed by him as governor during King Philip's War attracted the favorable notice of Charles II., who knighted him in 1676, three years before his death. (pp. 462-163)

The proper reference for this magazine looks like this, I believe:
Rasay, C.E.S. (1889, Jan.-June). The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. The Magazine of American History. Vol. XXI, ed. by Martha Lamb. New York.

By the way the author strongly stands by his work, claiming that "conflicting sources have been scrutinized," but I'm not sure there was any disagreement about his being knighted at the time; that wasn't questioned until later.

So there you have it. As friends with Cromwell, he could at least push that around for a few years. I will look into it.

Another article is about the earliest days of Iowa City. I couldn't have it a better jackpot.

John the Governor

I've been redoing Puritan Leveretts (consider this a kind of kindle cover reveal) so I went to the basement to find an old picture of Governor John. Found it! (will provide) But inside the brown crinkly magazine, a historical mag from about 1896, was a story about John apparently befriending "the Commander" (Oliver Cromwell?) in his war exploits in England.

This would be huge news. It's somewhat unclear to me, though. I will bring it up, and incorporate it into the book, all in good time.

And, will keep you posted.