Joseph Leavitt - Later Years and Maine Legacy

Later Years and Maine Legacy

Leavitt and his wife continued to live in Turner, as the new town became known. Eventually the former soldier and pacifist opened a public house, and he was chosen to represent the town in local and state councils. Leavitt's first wife Anna (Stevens) bore eight children, the oldest of whom was the first male child born in the new township of Turner. Leavitt subsequently married twice; to Hannah Chandler, with whom he had another two children; and as his third wife Elsea Caswell, with whom he had no children.

Ultimately Joseph Leavitt's father Jacob departed Pembroke, Massachusetts, and joined his son at his new Maine lodgings. Father Jacob died in 1814 at age 82; his wife Sylvia (Bonney) Leavitt died in 1810. Frontiersman and former pacifist Joseph Leavitt, known by the cognomen 'Quaker Joe' for the rest of his life, died at age 83 in 1839. He is buried in Turner's Upper Street Cemetery, near his original house lot. Noted on his gravestone is his service, albeit brief, as a private in the American Revolutionary cause. Lying nearby is his father Jacob, whose own service as a Minuteman in the Continental Army is noted on his tombstone.