John Leavitt (Ohio Settler) - Founding of Warren

Founding of Warren

On his arrival in the Western Reserve, Leavitt discovered that the prospective town of Warren was better situated than Leavittsburg, having more open bottom land and better mill sites. The original ownership of 'township four, range four' – what became Warren – was vested in Ebenezer King Jr. and Capt. Leavitt. On his arrival in the summer of 1800, Capt. Leavitt built a cabin on the west side of what would later become Warren's Main Street. Leavitt subsequently returned to Connecticut, then came back to Warren the following year with wife Silence. The couple had eight children, many of whom later moved to Ohio: William, John Jr, Cynthia, Sally, Henry Fitch, Abdiah, Humphrey Howe and Albert.

The new town, according to some accounts, was infested at the time of Leavitt's arrival by enormous rattlesnakes. In one early account, written when Warren consisted of 16 settlers, an observer mentions a hunt which netted 486 rattlers. "At this time," wrote the observer, "rattlesnakes abounded in some places." The hunt he witnessed, in which cudgel-wielding settlers chased the snakes off their rock ledges and into their dens, was deemed a success, with the "slain collected into heaps... a good portion of which were larger than a man's leg below the calf, and over five feet in length."

But Warren's location – rattlesnakes aside – meant the town soon became the dominant town in the Mahoning Valley region. "Warren had influence that Youngstown did not possess", said the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, referring to Warren's early prominence in the region. Later settlers also chose to gather at the more propitiously-located Warren, instead of at Leavittsburg.

Shortly after his arrival, Capt. Leavitt converted his new home into an inn and tavern, opening the first hotel in Warren. He was followed to Warren by a steady stream of other family members, including his son John Jr., known as 'Esquire John', who was county treasurer when he died at Warren in 1815; Capt. John's brother Samuel, known as 'Esquire Samuel,' born in Suffield in 1756, who upon visiting Warren in 1800, purchased a farm next door to that of his nephew John Jr. (Samuel Leavitt moved to Warren full-time in 1802, bringing his wife Abigail Kent Austin with him from Suffield. Following the death of his wife in 1816, Samuel Leavitt moved into a house on Main Street in Warren.)