Dudley Leavitt (publisher) - The New Almanac Takes Off

The New Almanac Takes Off

But the almanac, which he dubbed Leavitt's Farmers' Almanack and Miscellaneous Yearbook, became such a success that after a while Leavitt shelved many of his other activities to focus on it. The once-farfetched idea was a runaway hit. By 1846, for instance, Leavitt's almanacs were selling some 60,000 copies for that year's two editions – a tremendous number for the era.

What Leavitt seized on, probably because of his interest in astronomy, was something every New Englander knew: that the weather was topic number one. Leavitt's publication, with its interest in astronomy and crops, was an early "Weather Channel". He took note of inclement and especially of freakish weather. And readers noticed. During the cold summer of 1816, when crops froze in July, and snow fell a foot deep in the Berkshires, Leavitt turned to his astronomy to divine the cause: he attributed the cold to sun spots. Had he known about it, Leavitt might have suggested the eruption of Mount Tamboro in the East Indies as the cause. But whatever the cause was, readers noticed that Leavitt noticed and hazarded a guess, at least, and one that sounded plausible, at least to their ears. Of such stuff are circulation gains made.

Ultimately the schoolteacher and part-time farmer Leavitt came to be seen as 'Leavitt the almanac-maker,' as he was often referred to in his day, and in the ultimate tribute, his once-anonymous almanacs came to carry the creator's name. In an early instance of 'brand identity', by 1824 the almanacs carried the title of Leavitt's New-England Farmer's Almanack. During his era, improbably enough, Dudley Leavitt was as close to a celebrity as the times produced. "Through his almanacs," noted Joseph Walker, as close a biographer as the almanac-compiler ever had, "(Leavitt) was probably known to more persons in New Hampshire than any other man."

The aura of celebrity around Leavitt was such, wrote Henry McFarland in his Sixty Years in Concord and Elsewhere, that "stage-drivers pointed out his house to passengers as that of a person of great renown.... I remember him as a courtly man with gentle manners." John F. Brown, a local printer for whom McFarland worked, published Leavitt's almanacs, paying the unheard-of sum, said McFarland, of "$100 for the copy."

Leavitt aimed the almanacs at the general population of New England, supplying tips on everything from farming to the weather to astronomy. As word spread about the publication, readership jumped, and the publication became a fixture throughout the region. The almanacs were sold at general stores, and later at grocery stores and drug stores. Leavitt was aided in some of the almanac's calculations geared towards agriculture by his nephew, astronomer William B. Leavitt.

The almanac's entry of September 6, 1881, for instance, published after the founder's death, demonstrated the detailed observation of natural phenomena which marked the publication. "Tuesday, September 6, 1881, was remarkable over the whole of New England and may be known as Yellow Day. It was so dark in many places that artificial light was needed for the common acts of indoor life. Without, the dense curtains of smoke or dry fog that shut out the sun, gave a peculiar yellow hue to the atmosphere, changing the color of the trees and grass, perplexing the birds and other animals and seriously frightening the superstitious. It will long be remembered."

Despite his descent from Puritan John Leavitt, founding deacon of Old Ship Church, America's oldest in continuous use, Dudley Leavitt was a skeptic. Perhaps it was his academic and scientific nature, but Leavitt was known throughout the Meredith area for his scoffing at religion. At one session of evening prayer, for instance, Leavitt's wife offered up a fervent prayer that her husband scholar be saved. When she was done, Leavitt got up, put on his hat and said "We read in God's word, that the unbelieving husband shall be justified by the prayers of the believing wife," and marched out of the church.