John McDowell Leavitt - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Rev. Dr. John McDowell Leavitt, D.D., LL.D. (1824–1909) was an early Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

lawyer, Episcopal clergyman, poet, novelist, editor and professor. Leavitt served as the second President of Lehigh University

Lehigh University

Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...

, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...

, and as President of St. John's College

St. John's College, U.S.

St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...

in Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...

.

John Leavitt was born on May 10, 1824, at Steubenville, Ohio

Steubenville, Ohio

Steubenville is a city located along the Ohio River in Jefferson County, Ohio on the Ohio-West Virginia border in the United States. It is the political county seat of Jefferson County. It is also a principal city of the Weirton–Steubenville, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area...

, the son of Humphrey Howe Leavitt, a U.S. Congressman from Ohio and later U.S. District Court judge, and his wife Maria Antoinette McDowell, daughter of physician Dr. John McDowell of Chester County, Pennsylvania

Chester County, Pennsylvania

-State parks:*French Creek State Park*Marsh Creek State Park*White Clay Creek Preserve-Demographics:As of the 2010 census, the county was 85.5% White, 6.1% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American or Alaskan Native, 3.9% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian, 1.8% were two or more races, and 2.4% were...

. John Leavitt graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Jefferson College (now Washington & Jefferson College

Washington & Jefferson College

Washington & Jefferson College, also known as W & J College or W&J, is a private liberal arts college in Washington, Pennsylvania, in the United States, which is south of Pittsburgh...

), and subsequently studied law with his father and with Judge Noah Haynes Swayne

Noah Haynes Swayne

Noah Haynes Swayne was an American jurist and politician. He was the first Republican appointed as a justice to the United States Supreme Court.-Birth and early life:...

. Leavitt established a law practice at Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

, but after four restless years he gave up his practice and entered the theological seminary at Gambier, Ohio

Gambier, Ohio

Gambier is a village in Knox County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,871 at the 2000 census.Gambier is the home of Kenyon College and was named after one of Kenyon College's early benefactors, Lord Gambier....

.

After his graduation from seminary, Leavitt was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1848, and deacon in 1862. (Leavitt's great-grandfather was the Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

Presbyterian minister Rev. Alexander McDowell.) Leavitt embarked on a career as an editor poet, professor, writer and university president. From 1868 to 1871 he served as the editor of The American Quarterly Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register. Leavitt taught at Kenyon College

Kenyon College

Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...

and Ohio University

Ohio University

Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...

, which conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and where he served successively as professor of mathematics and later of languages. Leavitt served briefly as a rector, at St James Episcopal Church in Zanesville, Ohio

Zanesville, Ohio

Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. The population was 25,586 at the 2000 census.Zanesville was named after Ebenezer Zane, who had constructed Zane's Trace, a pioneer road through present-day Ohio...

during his tenure as a Kenyon College professor.

On September 1, 1875, he was named president of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

, which was founded in 1865 as a four-year technical college. During Leavitt's tenure Lehigh was divided into two schools, general literature and technology, and under his incumbency the college began offering a Ph.D.

But Leavitt's tenure wasn't tranquil. The brilliant minister, who had been appointed after delivering a graduation address some found electrifying, sometimes alienated the faculty. The University's trustees soon found "that with Leavitt they had a president who was brilliant, energetic and tactless," writes William Ross Yates in his Lehigh University, a history of the institution. "Leavitt had been a child prodigy, graduating from Jefferson College with honors at the age of seventeen." But Leavitt lacked the "orthodoxy and restraint of his predecessor," and his five-year tenure was "unhappy." Leavitt was estranged from the faculty almost from the beginning, Yates writes: "A zeal for reform and a lack of tact in proposing it disturbed the professors, who by the time of his appointment were entrenched in their control of several departments." On top of the fractious relations with his faculty, Leavitt also found himself serving during a "severe economic depression." (The entering classes of 1877 and 1878 consisted of 35 students – half that of 1876.)

Within five years, after the enrollment at Lehigh dropped precipitously, Leavitt left for St. John's College, where he was named president of the Annapolis, Maryland, institution in 1880. During his tenure, St. John's established a department of mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

, where an engineering officer from the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

took up residence as professor. But once again Leavitt's tenure was rocky, and marked by another difficult financial situation, prompted by the withdrawal of an appropriation by the Maryland legislature.

Dr. Leavitt spent four years at St. John's, which awarded him the degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) in 1889. The College subsequently commissioned a portrait of its former president, and it was hung in McDowell Hall.

Following his service at St. John's, Leavitt was named to the Professorship of Ecclesiastical History at Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, where he subsequently became the Seminary's dean.

Leavitt's best-known book was "Kings of Capital and Knights of Labor," initially published by New York's John S. Willey Publishing Company in 1885. Leavitt also published 11 volumes of poetry, several novels and many works of non-fiction on subjects ranging from church history to philosophy. The Episcopal priest also founded and edited The International Review, as well as serving as editor of The Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register, the official journal of the Episcopal Church, for three years (1868–71). He also published Americans in Rome, Reasons for Faith in the Nineteenth Century, Visions of Solyma and Other Poems, Old World Tradigus from New World Life, Hymns to Our King and Paul Errington and Our Scarlet Prince: A Book for the American People.

Rev. Leavitt's works occasionally engendered controversy, and were not always warmly received by the critics. Dr. Leavitt is "exclamatory in style, and expects to carry the defenses of the enemy with a rush," wrote John Bascom

John Bascom

John Bascom was born on May 1, 1827 in Genoa, New York and was a graduate of Williams College with the class of 1849. He graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1855. Besides the degrees he got in those places, he held many other scholarly and honorary degrees...

in The Dial in 1901, reviewing Leavitt's book Reasons for Faith in Christianity. "His words are full of enthusiasm, and are fitted to give much satisfaction to those who entertain the same opinions as the speaker."

Having been a well-known Episcopal clergyman for more than 40 years, Leavitt created a stir in 1889 when he elected to leave the Protestant Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

for the Reformed Episcopalians. Saying that he could not be a consistent Protestant Episcopalian, largely because of what he considered to be a growing tendency in the Church toward Roman-style ritual, Leavitt spoke at churches across the county, where he explained his position. At a sermon at the First Reformed Episcopal Church, located on Madison Avenue and 51st Street in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, in October 1889, Leavitt spoke out.

"Dr. Leavitt is well-known not only as a clergyman of power and learning," wrote The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, "but as an author and publisher." In his sermon Leavitt spoke of being "compelled to abandon my ministry or abandon my church," according to The Times. Leavitt complained bitterly of an Episcopal church leaning towards Rome, with its version of "confession, Mary worship, Mass, prayers for the dead if not prayed to the dead, and other practices which I believe to be against Scripture and the law of the Church. As the Bishops will not enforce the law, they force me to withdraw." Leavitt complained of an unnamed Episcopal clergyman in New York who, Leavitt said, "I myself have heard him preach that which many Bishops on the bench would condemn and have reported him to the ecclesiastical authority, and still he holds his way undisturbed."

Leavitt's declaration followed the establishment of the Reformed Episcopal Church

Reformed Episcopal Church

The Reformed Episcopal Church is an Anglican church in the United States and Canada and a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America...

in 1873, when its initial declaration of principles rejected what it called a movement within the established church to follow sacraments which were "repressive of freedom in prayer."

John McDowell Leavitt was married to the former Bithia Brooks. They had four sons: John Brooks Leavitt

John Brooks Leavitt

John Brooks Leavitt was a New York City attorney, author and reformer. As member of the "Good Government" movement, Leavitt crusaded against Tammany Hall municipal corruption, demanding in 1897 the indictment of United States Senator Thomas C. Platt on charges of extorting bribes from the New York...

, an attorney, graduate of Columbia University Law School, and crusader against municipal corruption; Edwin Ransom Leavitt, a New York City lawyer; mechanical engineer and inventor Frank McDowell Leavitt, who also lived in Brooklyn, New York; and Humphrey H. Leavitt II, attorney; and two daughters; Bithia (Leavitt) Mersereau; and Ann Goodrich Leavitt, who married Lieut. James C. Cresap of the United States Navy

United States Navy

. John M. Leavitt died in Philadelphia in 1909. His wife Bithia Brooks Leavitt died in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, in 1880.

Further reading

See also