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Dudley Leavitt (1772 – September 20, 1851) was an American publisher. He was an early graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy〔(A number of histories of Dudley Leavitt say that the almanac publisher was self-educated, having never received more than three months of formal schooling. ) But a check of the records of Phillips Exeter Academy shows that a 'Dudley Leavitt' graduated from the Academy in 1790. It is possible that this is another Dudley Leavitt, as the Leavitt family were descendants of Moses Leavitt and Dorothy Dudley, the daughter of Exeter's Rev. Samuel Dudley, son of Governor Thomas Dudley, and Dudley became a Leavitt family name. But this is unlikely, and the Exeter graduate is probably the same Dudley Leavitt who compiled the almanacs, as the dates match for his appropriate age. Nor do the dates match for Congregational minister Dudley Leavitt, born at Exeter, and for whom Leavitt Street in Salem, Massachusetts, is named. Rev. Leavitt was born in 1720 and died in 1762, before the Academy was founded. ( Attorney Charles H. Bell in his book ''A Handbook of Exeter, New Hampshire'', states flatly that the almanac maker was a graduate of the Academy. )〕 in his native town of Exeter, New Hampshire, and later moved to Gilmanton where he first edited a newspaper and taught school. Within a few years, Leavitt relocated to Meredith, where in addition to teaching school and farming, he began publishing in 1797 ''Leavitt's Farmers Almanack'', one of the nation's earliest farmers' almanacs.〔Leavitt continued to use the spelling of 'Almanack' with a 'k' until at least 1850.〕 A polymath, Leavitt poured his knowledge of disparate fields including mathematics, language and astronomy into the wildly popular almanacs, which outlived their creator, being published until 1896. The inaugural issue of 1797 carried the title of ''The New England Calendar: Or, Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1797''. On the cover was the disclaimer that the new publication was "Calculated for the Meridian of Concord, Latitude 43° 14' N. Longitude 72° 45' W.: And with But Little Variation Will Answer for Any of the New England States."〔(The New England Calendar: Or, Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1797, Russell & Davis, Concord, printers, 1796, googlebooks )〕 ==Youth and early career== Dudley Leavitt was born at Exeter, the oldest child of farmer and landowner Joshua Leavitt and Elizabeth (née James).〔(Leavitt's mother Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Col. Winthrop Hilton of Exeter, who was killed in an Indian raid in 1710 in Epping, and descended from William Hilton, one of the earliest settlers of New Hampshire, who settled what is now Dover Point in 1623. )〕 He was named after Governor Thomas Dudley, the second colonial governor of Massachusetts, from whom both parents descended.〔(The First Annual Meeting of the Governor Thomas Dudley Association, Boston, Mass, October 17, 1893 )〕〔(Some Memories of Dudley Leavitt, Mrs. Phillip A. Prescott, ''The Granite State Monthly'', Concord, N.H., 1896 )〕 The descendant of early Exeter settlers, his father Joshua moved from Exeter to Deerfield early in Dudley Leavitt's life. After attending Exeter Academy, where he graduated in 1790,〔(General Catalogue of Officers and Students, 1783–1903, Phillips Exeter Academy, ''The News-Letter Press'', Exeter, 1903 )〕 Leavitt married Judith Glidden of Gilmanton in 1794, and he and his new wife took up residence in the town, where he had family.〔The Glidden family of Leavitt's wife were also early Gilmanton proprietors.〕 In Gilmanton, Leavitt began studying Latin and Greek under Rev. Isaac Smith. In 1802 Leavitt also served as a selectman for the town.〔(''The History of Gilmanton Embracing the Proprietary, Civil, Literary, Ecclesiastical, Biographical, Genealogical, and Miscellaneous History, from the First Settlement to the Present Time; Including what is now Gilford, to the time it was Disannexed'', Daniel Lancaster, A. Prescott, 1845 )〕 Leavitt's first love was mathematics and astronomy. Something of a pure scientist, Leavitt contributed scientific papers to societies until the end of his life, often having to do with astronomy and physics. The annual conventions of the American Philosophical Society often heard presentations of the latest of Leavitt's findings.〔(''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge'', Vol. IV, Printed for the Society, John C. Clark, Philadelphia, 1847 )〕 Nor were Leavitt's the musings of some crackpot New Hampshire hermit. In an 1811 paper concerning astronomy addressed to the President and membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, for instance, Leavitt outlined his ''New and short Method of calculating the times of the First and Last Quarters of the Moon''.〔(''Collections, Historical and Miscellaneous: And Monthly Literary Journal'', John Farmer, Jacob Bailey Moore, Published by Hill and Moore, 1831 )〕 But with his scholarly inquiries and meager publishing income, Leavitt turned to teaching to supplement his income. In 1800 he founded the ''Gilmanton Gazette'', a local weekly newspaper in Gilmanton, as well as the ''Farmer's Weekly Magazine'' for two years with a partner in the newly established publishing house of "Leavitt & Clough".〔(''The American Quarterly Review'', Vol. XIII, B.B. Edwards and W. Cogswell, American Education Society, T.R. Marvin, Boston, 1841 )〕 Leavitt's foray into newspaper publishing was an apparent failure, but he was pioneer of the industry in the state. The presses used to print his early broadsheet were purchased by the proprietors of the new ''Concord Gazette'' in 1806, who paid to have the presses lugged from Gilmanton to Concord on a two-horse wagon so they could begin printing one of the capital's earliest newspapers, and the only competitor of ''The New Hampshire Patriot''.〔(''History of Concord, New Hampshire: From the Original Grant in Seventeen Hundred and Twenty-five to the Opening of the Twentieth Century'', Concord City History Commission, James Otis Lyford, Amos Hadley, Will B. Howe, The Rumford Press, Concord, 1896 )〕 Discouraged with the economics of newspaper publishing, Leavitt and his wife decided to move to Meredith in 1819. Pursuing another avenue of work, Leavitt ran an advertisement in the Concord ''Observer'' newspaper announcing that he was opening the "Meredith Academick School". The new school, its headmaster announced, would "offer instruction in the various grades usually taught in academies.... No pains will be spared on the part of the instructor to render the acquisition of useful knowledge easy and pleasant to those young gentlemen and ladies who may attend the School." The "reasonable" board would cost $3.00 for each quarter's enrolment, Leavitt announced in his initial advertisement, and would cover most fields of study, except "Algebra, Navigation, Gunnery, or the Science of Projectiles, &c., Spherick Geometry & Trigonometry, Astronomy & Philosophy." For study in those more complicated fields Leavitt proposed to charge an additional 50 cents tuition for each quarter of enrolment. Around Meredith the new schoolmaster became known as "Old Master Leavitt". Leavitt settled on his Meredith farm near Center Harbor, less than a mile from Lake Winnipesaukee, where he held his classes. He was known as a stern taskmaster who did not suffer fools, or wisecracking students. But Leavitt had enough of a sense of whimsy that he handpainted panels of "Award of Merit" to those students he felt met his stringent guidelines.〔(''Family Records of the Branches of the Hanaford, Thompson, Huckins, Prescott, Smith, Neal, Haley, Lock, Swift, Plumer, Leavitt, Wilson, Green, and Allied Families'', Mary Elisabeth Neal Hanaford, Rockford, Ill., 1915 )〕 (Leavitt never gave up teaching, even when busying himself with his almanac and other projects. He taught school into his 70s, and it was customary in New Hampshire for successful men to boast that they had been educated by Leavitt.) When not teaching, he was to be found farming his or immersed in study. Stories were legion of Leavitt so immersed in reading or study that he was oblivious to nearly everything around him. And the scholar Leavitt was no gentleman farmer. Aside from having edited a newspaper devoted to agriculture, Leavitt raised cattle on his small farm and toiled long hours when not teaching or writing. Out of the confluence of Leavitt's scholarly interests, his former career as a newspaper writer and publisher, and his work as an author of textbooks was born the idea behind his farmer's almanac, which he first began publishing while living in Gilmanton.〔(''Memorials of Meredith, New Hampshire'', Franklin P. Rice, Massachusetts Record Society, Worcester, 1891 )〕 From the beginning, Leavitt demonstrated an unrelenting common sense, as well as a sly sense of humor. In an early edition of his almanacs, for instance, Leavitt included an illustration of a New Hampshireman struggling against the elements. Quoting a supposed poem of the 17th century, Leavitt wrote, in lines summoning feelings familiar to current Granite State residents, "Our mountains and hills and our vallies (sic) below; Being commonly cover'd with ice and with snow; And when the north-west wind with violence blows, Then every man pulls his cap over his nose; But if any's so hardy, and will it withstand, He forfeits a finger, a foot or a hand."〔(''Views of American Landscapes'', Mick Gidley, Robert Lawson-Peebles (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2007, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-03393-4, ISBN 978-0-521-03393-0 )〕 Leavitt continued to publish the eponymous almanac after he moved to Meredith. He had already founded a newspaper in 1811, while still living in Gilmanton, which he called ''The New Hampshire Register'', and which he continued publishing for several years (1811–17). The ''Register'' became well-known thanks to Leavitt's habit of printing brief synopses of historical events.〔(''Report of the State Librarian to the New Hampshire Legislature'', New Hampshire State Librarian, published by the Librarian, Ira C. Evans, Concord, 1891 )〕 On the side, between farming, teaching school, and publishing his newspaper, Leavitt wrote and published at least eight textbooks on mathematics, grammar, astronomy, geography and music, including an edition of Nicolas Pike's widely distributed ''A New and Complete System of Arithmetic'' in 1826,〔(''Statistics of Land-grant Colleges and Universities'', United States Office of Education, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1917 )〕 as well as the staple textbooks of teachers across the nation ''The Scholar's Review'' and ''Teacher's Daily Assistant''.〔(''Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior'', United States Bureau of Education, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1899 )〕 The scores of textbooks produced by Leavitt, a dizzying array of titles down the years, including ''Complete Directions for Parsing the English Language; Or, The Rules of Grammar Made Easy: Being a New Grammatical Essay, Designed as a Supplement to Lindley Murray's Grammar, for the Use of Students as Soon as They Begin to Parse'', make one wonder where Leavitt found the time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dudley Leavitt (publisher)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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