1. John Leverett was an English colonial magistrate, merchant, soldier and the penultimate governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
29 Facts About John Leverett
1. 2.
John Leverett was a leading merchant in the colony, and served in its military.
3.
John Leverett was opposed to the strict Puritan religious orthodoxy in the colony.
4.
John Leverett believed the colonial government was not within the power of the English crown and government, a politically hardline position that contributed to the eventual revocation of the colonial charter in 1684.
5.
John Leverett oversaw the colonial actions in King Philip's War, and expanded the colony's territories by purchasing land claims in present-day Maine.
6.
John Leverett's father, Thomas Leverett, was a close associate of John Cotton, the church's Puritan pastor, and served as one of the church's elders.
7.
John Leverett frequently partnered with Edward Gibbons and Major General Robert Sedgwick in trading ventures.
8.
John Leverett was, for example, part owner with Gibbons of a ship lost off the Virginia coast.
9.
Gibbons had negotiated exclusive trading privileges with la Tour in exchange for this help, and John Leverett was able to secure preferential trading privileges with the French.
10.
John Leverett had a military command in the cavalry of Thomas Rainsborough, where he supposedly served with distinction.
11.
John Leverett would pursue the idea politically, often in the face of opposition from the conservative Puritan leadership of Massachusetts that opposed religious views that did not accord with their own.
12.
John Leverett specifically opposed the Cambridge Platform describing New England church orthodoxy, and opposed punishments of nonconforming individuals when he sat as a deputy in the Massachusetts general court.
13.
John Leverett became active in local politics after becoming a freeman in 1640.
14.
John Leverett would be called on for diplomatic missions in future administrations as well.
15.
John Leverett was elected as one of Boston's two representatives in the colony's general court in 1651, and served a brief stint as Speaker of the House.
16.
John Leverett was a popular leader of the colonial militia, something that resulted in an unusual situation caused by the colony's militia laws.
17.
In 1652, when John Leverett was captain of a Suffolk County company of horse, he was elected as a captain of one of Boston infantry companies as well as captain of the Artillery Company of Massachusetts.
18.
John Leverett was, apparently, allowed to retain his captaincy of the Artillery Company as the company was exempt from regulations governing the militia.
19.
John Leverett became interested in developing more land in Maine as result of this and other official visits, and invested in a significant amount of land there, over and above the lands inherited from his father.
20.
John Leverett was one of the commissioners sent in 1653; he took careful note of the colony's defenses while he was there.
21.
The New Haven Colony petitioned the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell for assistance against the Dutch threat, a position supported by John Leverett, who went to England with Sedgwick in 1653 to press the colonial case for war.
22.
John Leverett funded much of the cost of the occupation himself, and then petitioned Cromwell's government for reimbursement.
23.
John Leverett was consequently still petitioning for compensation after the Restoration.
24.
From 1663 to 1673, John Leverett held the rank of major-general of the Massachusetts militia, and was repeatedly elected as a deputy to the general court or to the council of assistants.
25.
John Leverett was again sent to the colonial settlements of New Hampshire and southern Maine, where some colonists had objected to Massachusetts rule and arrested colonial officials.
26.
The arrival of the commissioners was of some concern to the government, and John Leverett was placed on a committee to draft a petition to the king demanding the commission's recall.
27.
John Leverett served as deputy governor under governor Richard Bellingham from 1671 to 1672, and succeeded to his position after the governor's death.
28.
Edward Randolph, sent by Charles to report on the New England colonies, reported in 1676 that John Leverett believed the colony to be beyond the crown's reach: "He freely declared to me that the laws made by your Majesty and your Parliament obligeth them in nothing but what consists with the interest of that colony".
29.
John Leverett's descendants include his grandson John, the seventh President of Harvard College, and Leverett Saltonstall, a 20th-century governor of Massachusetts.