Thaddeus Leavitt was an American merchant who invented an improved upon version of the cotton gin, as well as joining with seven other Connecticut men to purchase most of the three-million-plus acres of the Western Reserve lands in Ohio from the government of Connecticut, land on which some of his family eventually settled, founding Leavittsburg, Ohio, and settling in Trumbull County, Ohio.
14 Facts About Thaddeus Leavitt
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Thaddeus Leavitt kept a journal in which he noted everything from the weather to 'cures' for various ailments to the adoption of the United States Constitution.
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Thaddeus Leavitt was a son of farmer and carpenter John Leavitt and his wife Abiah Leavitt.
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Thaddeus Leavitt became an early Suffield merchant, selectman and Justice of the Peace, and was known as 'Squire Thaddeus Leavitt.
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Thaddeus Leavitt was one of Hartford County's leading citizens, and became wealthy in his dealings as a merchant and shipowner.
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Thaddeus Leavitt's ships traded as far afield as the West Indies and other far-flung destinations, and the entrepreneurial Leavitt acted as both importer and exporter.
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Thanks to his increasing wealth, Thaddeus Leavitt built the home later known in Suffield as the Harmon House on High Street.
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Thaddeus Leavitt used the profits from his increasingly lucrative trading to join seven other prominent Connecticut men in purchasing the Western Reserve lands from the state of Connecticut, which the state had offered for sale in exchange for funds paid into the state's treasury for educational purposes.
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In 1803 Thaddeus Leavitt was among several Connecticut citizens chosen to resolve a dispute between the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts concerning the border between the two states.
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Thaddeus Leavitt was one of a succession of trustees ordered to resolve the ongoing conflict between the two New England states.
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Thaddeus Leavitt served as one of the earliest directors of the newly-incorporated Hartford Bank.
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Merchant Thaddeus Leavitt even had his fingers in the state's agricultural economy, serving on the committee of the Hartford County Agricultural Society.
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Thaddeus Leavitt married Elizabeth King, daughter of Ensign William King of Suffield and his wife Lucy Hatheway.
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Thaddeus Leavitt's descendants include his great-grandsons, the three Hunt brothers: architect Richard Morris Hunt; Boston painter William Morris Hunt; and the lawyer and photography pioneer Thaddeus Leavitt Hunt.