John Leverett
Encyclopedia
John Leverett was an English colonial magistrate, merchant, soldier and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
. Born in England, he came to Massachusetts as a teenager. He was a leading merchant in the colony, and served in its military. In the 1640s he went back to England to fight in the English Civil War
.
He was opposed to the strict Puritan religious orthodoxy in the colony. He also 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. His business and military activities were sometimes intermingled, leading some in the colony to view him unfavorably. However, he was popular with his troops, and was repeatedly elected governor of the colony from 1673 until his death in 1679. He oversaw the colonial actions in King Philip's War
, and expanded the colony's territories by purchasing land claims in present-day Maine
.
. His father, Thomas Leverett, was a close associate of John Cotton, the church's Puritan
pastor, and served as one of the church's elders. Nothing is known of his mother, Anne Fisher, beyond that she bore her husband 16 children. Of John Leverett's youth nothing is known prior to the family's departure for the New World
in 1633. By the early 1630s Leverett's father was an alderman in Boston, and had acquired, in partnership with John Beauchamp of the Plymouth Council for New England
, a grant now known as the Waldo Patent
for land in what is now the state of Maine
. When the family arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
it settled in the capital, also called Boston
. In 1640 Leverett was made a freeman
and joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. Leverett married Hannah Hudson in 1639. She bore him a son, Hudson, in 1640, and died in 1643.
The Artillery Company was a focal point in the colony for people who disagreed with the orthodoxy of the colony's Puritan leaders. Many of its leading members, Leverett among them, opposed the colonial crackdowns on religious dissenters. Its members also engaged in trade. Leverett frequently partnered with Edward Gibbons and Major General Robert Sedgwick
in trading ventures. He was, for example, part owner with Gibbons of a ship lost off the Virginia coast. The mixture of military leadership and commercial enterprise sometimes led to conflicts of interest. In the 1640s, Gibbons convinced Governor John Winthrop
to allow Massachusetts volunteers to assist French Acadian Governor Charles de la Tour
in his dispute with Charles de Menou d'Aulnay
. Gibbons had negotiated exclusive trading privileges with la Tour in exchange for this help, and Leverett was also able to secure preferential trading privileges with the French.
Leverett was a popular leader of the colonial militia, something that resulted in an unusual situation caused by the colony's militia laws. The colony had voted to limit the size of its militia companies, and restricted their officers to hold only one post. In 1652, when Leverett was captain of a Suffolk County
company of horse, he was also elected as a captain of one of the Boston infantry companies. The colonial magistrates refused to grant him an exemption from the rule, and he was required to give up the Boston post.
for Oliver Cromwell
in the English Civil War
. He had a military command in the cavalry of Thomas Rainsborough
, where he supposedly served with distinction. He returned home in 1645, but may have gone back to England in the following years. He married Robert Sedgwick's daughter Sarah in 1645. The couple had 12 children, of whom only six survived to adulthood.
Leverett's time in England brought him to a belief in the need for more religious tolerance. He 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 narrow views. He 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 (the colonial legislature). John Winthrop, in writing about the 1648 synod that adopted the platform, noted that those "who came lately from England" were strongly opposed to its resolutions.
were sent as diplomatic envoys to negotiate with the Narragansett chief Miantonomoh
amid concerns that all of the local Indian tribes were conspiring to wage war on the English colonists. Miantonomoh came to Boston and convinced Governor Winthrop that the rumors they had heard were groundless. Leverett would be called on for diplomatic missions in future administrations as well.
Following his return from England, he resumed his political activities. He 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. Throughout the 1650s and 1660s he served five terms on the general court.
Governor John Endecott
in 1652 sent a survey party to determine the colony's northern boundary, which was specified by the charter to be 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the Merrimack River
. This survey party discovered (incorrectly) that the northern limit of the Merrimack was near what is now known as Lake Winnipesaukee
in New Hampshire
. An east-west boundary at this latitude was found to include a number small settlements in what is now southern Maine. Endecott sent Leverett as one of several commissioners to negotiate the inclusion of these settlements into the colonial government, which resulted in the eventual formation of York County, Massachusetts
. 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.
In 1655 he was formally appointed as the Massachusetts colony's agent in England. It is unclear, given the overlap with his governance in Acadia, when he actually went to England, but he served in this capacity until 1662. During the 1650s when Cromwell was Lord Protector
the colony benefited from the relationship he had cultivated with Cromwell during the civil war. In particular, Cromwell took no steps to enforce the 1651 Navigation Act
against the colony's merchants, and also overlooked complaints about the colony's repressive tactics against religious nonconformists. The latter occurred despite Leverett's personal opposition to the colony's extreme stance on religion. A common claim that Leverett was knighted by Charles II lacks a solid foundation in the documentary record.
. Word of this arrived in the New World in 1652, and rumors flew around the English colonies of New England that the Dutch in New Amsterdam
were conspiring with all of the region's Indians to make war against them. Leverett and Robert Sedgwick both saw a significant benefit for their trading operations if the Dutch could be eliminated as competitors, and lobbied for military action against New Amsterdam, although religious moderates like Simon Bradstreet
were opposed to it. New Amsterdam's Director-General
Peter Stuyvesant
invited a delegation from New England colonies to New Amsterdam to discuss the matter. Leverett was one of the commissioners sent in 1653; he took careful note of the colony's defenses while he was there. The New Haven Colony
petitioned the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell for assistance against the Dutch threat, a position supported by Leverett, who went to England with Sedgwick in 1653 to press the colonial case for war.
Cromwell responded by giving Sedgwick a commission as military commander of the New England coast, and sent him and Leverett with several ships and some troops to make war on the Dutch. The fleet was to be augmented by a force of 500 New Englanders under Leverett's command. By the time the New England force was raised in 1654, peace had been made
between the English and Dutch. Sedgwick took advantage of his commission to act instead against the French in neighboring Acadia
, which was home to privateer
s who preyed on English shipping. He captured the principal Acadian ports of Port Royal
and Fort Pentagouet in July 1654. Sedgwick gave military command of the province to Leverett. Leverett governed Nova Scotia for three years, turning command over to Sir Thomas Temple
in May 1657. During this time he and Sedgwick enforced a virtual trade monopoly on French Acadia for their benefit, leading some in the colony to view Leverett as a predatory opportunist. Leverett funded much of the cost of the occupation himself, and then petitioned Cromwell's government for reimbursement. Although Cromwell authorized payment, he made it contingent on the colony performing an audit of Leverett's finances, which never took place. Leverett was consequently still petitioning for compensation after the Restoration
(1660).
, and was repeatedly elected as a deputy to the general court or to the council of assistants. During this time he oversaw the strengthening of Boston's defenses. He was also again sent to the colonial settlements of New Hampshire and southern Maine, where some colonists had objected to Massachusetts rule and arrested colonial officials.
Following the restoration of Charles II
to the throne, all of England's colonies came under his scrutiny. In 1665 Charles sent four commissioners to Massachusetts. They were instructed to gain the colony's agreement to terms demanded by Charles in a letter he sent to the colonial government in 1662, in which he instructed the colony to adopt more tolerant religious laws, and to enforce the Navigation Acts. The arrival of the commissioners was of some concern to the government, and Leverett was placed on a committee to draft a petition to the king demanding the commission's recall. The document they drafted characterized the commissioners as "agents of evil sent to Massachusetts to subvert its charter and destroy its independence."
Leverett served as deputy governor under governor Richard Bellingham
in 1671–1672, and succeeded to his position after the governor's death. His tenure as governor was chiefly notable because of King Philip's War
, and the rising threats to the colonial charter that culminated in its revocation in 1684. The colony angered the king by purchasing the claims of Sir Ferdinando Gorges
to portions of Maine in 1677, a territory Charles had intended to acquire for his son, the Duke of Monmouth
. Edward Randolph
, sent by Charles to report on the New England colonies, reported in 1676 that 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".
Although Leverett favored religious tolerance, there were still many in the colony who did not. Baptists were able to openly begin worship in Boston during his tenure, but he has also been criticized by Quaker historians for harsh anti-Quaker laws passed in 1677. (The Baptists' time in Boston did not last — they were thrown out in 1680 after Simon Bradstreet became governor.)
in Boston. His descendants include his grandson John
, the seventh President of Harvard College
, and Leverett Saltonstall
, a 19th century governor of Massachusetts
. Leverett, Massachusetts
is named for his grandson.
Cotton Mather
wrote of Leverett that he was "one to whom the affections of the freemen were signalised his quick advances through the lesser stages of honor and office, unto the highest in the country; and one whose courage had been as much recommended by martial actions abroad in his younger years, as his wisdom and justice were now at home in his elder."
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
. Born in England, he came to Massachusetts as a teenager. He was a leading merchant in the colony, and served in its military. In the 1640s he went back to England to fight in the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
.
He was opposed to the strict Puritan religious orthodoxy in the colony. He also 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. His business and military activities were sometimes intermingled, leading some in the colony to view him unfavorably. However, he was popular with his troops, and was repeatedly elected governor of the colony from 1673 until his death in 1679. He oversaw the colonial actions in King Philip's War
King Philip's War
King Philip's War, sometimes called Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–76. The war is named after the main leader of the...
, and expanded the colony's territories by purchasing land claims in present-day Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
.
Early life
John Leverett was baptized 7 July 1616 at St Botolph's Church in Boston, LincolnshireBoston, Lincolnshire
Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district and had a total population of 55,750 at the 2001 census...
. His father, Thomas Leverett, was a close associate of John Cotton, the church's Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
pastor, and served as one of the church's elders. Nothing is known of his mother, Anne Fisher, beyond that she bore her husband 16 children. Of John Leverett's youth nothing is known prior to the family's departure for the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
in 1633. By the early 1630s Leverett's father was an alderman in Boston, and had acquired, in partnership with John Beauchamp of the Plymouth Council for New England
Plymouth Council for New England
The Plymouth Council for New England was the name of a 17th century English joint stock company that was granted a royal charter to found colonial settlements along the coast of North America....
, a grant now known as the Waldo Patent
Waldo Patent
The Waldo Patent, a letters patent also known as the Muscongus Patent or the Lincolnshire Patent, was an area of land 36 miles square in what is now the U.S...
for land in what is now the state of Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
. When the family arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
it settled in the capital, also called Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. In 1640 Leverett was made a freeman
Freeman (Colonial)
Freeman is a term which originated in 12th century Europe and is common as an English or American Colonial expression in Puritan times. In the Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman. In Colonial Plymouth, a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be...
and joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. Leverett married Hannah Hudson in 1639. She bore him a son, Hudson, in 1640, and died in 1643.
The Artillery Company was a focal point in the colony for people who disagreed with the orthodoxy of the colony's Puritan leaders. Many of its leading members, Leverett among them, opposed the colonial crackdowns on religious dissenters. Its members also engaged in trade. Leverett frequently partnered with Edward Gibbons and Major General Robert Sedgwick
Robert Sedgwick
Major General Robert Sedgwick was an English colonist, born 1611 in Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, and baptised on May 6, 1613.-Biography:...
in trading ventures. He was, for example, part owner with Gibbons of a ship lost off the Virginia coast. The mixture of military leadership and commercial enterprise sometimes led to conflicts of interest. In the 1640s, Gibbons convinced Governor John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
to allow Massachusetts volunteers to assist French Acadian Governor Charles de la Tour
Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour
Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, the French King's appointed Governor of Acadia from 1631–1642 and again from 1653–1657, was born in France in 1593 and died at Cap de Sable in 1666...
in his dispute with Charles de Menou d'Aulnay
Charles de Menou d'Aulnay
Charles de Menou d'Aulnay was a pioneer of European settlement in North America and Governor of Acadia .-Biography:D'Aulnay was a member of the French nobility who was at various times a sea captain, a lieutenant in the French navy to his cousin Isaac de Razilly, and Governor of Acadia...
. Gibbons had negotiated exclusive trading privileges with la Tour in exchange for this help, and Leverett was also able to secure preferential trading privileges with the French.
Leverett was a popular leader of the colonial militia, something that resulted in an unusual situation caused by the colony's militia laws. The colony had voted to limit the size of its militia companies, and restricted their officers to hold only one post. In 1652, when Leverett was captain of a Suffolk County
Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Suffolk County has no land border with Plymouth County to its southeast, but the two counties share a water boundary in the middle of Massachusetts Bay.-National protected areas:*Boston African American National Historic Site...
company of horse, he was also elected as a captain of one of the Boston infantry companies. The colonial magistrates refused to grant him an exemption from the rule, and he was required to give up the Boston post.
English Civil War
In about 1644 Leverett went to England, where he fought in the Parliamentary causeRoundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
for Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
in the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
. He had a military command in the cavalry of Thomas Rainsborough
Thomas Rainsborough
Thomas Rainsborough , or Rainborough or Raineborough or Rainborowe or Rainbow or Rainborow, was a prominent figure in the English Civil War, and was the leading spokesman of the Levellers in the Putney Debates.-Life:He was the son of William Rainsborough, a captain and Vice-Admiral in the Royal...
, where he supposedly served with distinction. He returned home in 1645, but may have gone back to England in the following years. He married Robert Sedgwick's daughter Sarah in 1645. The couple had 12 children, of whom only six survived to adulthood.
Leverett's time in England brought him to a belief in the need for more religious tolerance. He 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 narrow views. He 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 (the colonial legislature). John Winthrop, in writing about the 1648 synod that adopted the platform, noted that those "who came lately from England" were strongly opposed to its resolutions.
Massachusetts politics
Leverett became active in local politics after becoming a freeman in 1640. In 1642 Leverett and Edward HutchinsonEdward Hutchinson (captain)
Edward Hutchinson was the oldest son of the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony William Hutchinson and the dissident minister Anne Hutchinson...
were sent as diplomatic envoys to negotiate with the Narragansett chief Miantonomoh
Miantonomoh
Miantonomoh , also spelled Miantonomo, Miantonomah or Miantonomi, was a chief of the Narragansett tribe of New England Indians, nephew of their grand sachem, Canonicus...
amid concerns that all of the local Indian tribes were conspiring to wage war on the English colonists. Miantonomoh came to Boston and convinced Governor Winthrop that the rumors they had heard were groundless. Leverett would be called on for diplomatic missions in future administrations as well.
Following his return from England, he resumed his political activities. He 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. Throughout the 1650s and 1660s he served five terms on the general court.
Governor John Endecott
John Endecott
John Endecott was an English colonial magistrate, soldier and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During all of his years in the colony but one, he held some form of civil, judicial, or military high office...
in 1652 sent a survey party to determine the colony's northern boundary, which was specified by the charter to be 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the Merrimack River
Merrimack River
The Merrimack River is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into Massachusetts, and then flows northeast until it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Newburyport...
. This survey party discovered (incorrectly) that the northern limit of the Merrimack was near what is now known as Lake Winnipesaukee
Lake Winnipesaukee
Lake Winnipesaukee is the largest lake in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. It is approximately long and from wide , covering — when Paugus Bay is included—with a maximum depth of ....
in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
. An east-west boundary at this latitude was found to include a number small settlements in what is now southern Maine. Endecott sent Leverett as one of several commissioners to negotiate the inclusion of these settlements into the colonial government, which resulted in the eventual formation of York County, Massachusetts
York County, Massachusetts
York County, Massachusetts was a county in what is now the U.S. state of Maine. It was established in 1652 when the Massachusetts Bay Colony first asserted territorial claims over the settlements of southern Maine, extending from the Piscataqua River to just east of the mouth of the Presumpscot...
. 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.
In 1655 he was formally appointed as the Massachusetts colony's agent in England. It is unclear, given the overlap with his governance in Acadia, when he actually went to England, but he served in this capacity until 1662. During the 1650s when Cromwell was Lord Protector
Lord Protector
Lord Protector is a title used in British constitutional law for certain heads of state at different periods of history. It is also a particular title for the British Heads of State in respect to the established church...
the colony benefited from the relationship he had cultivated with Cromwell during the civil war. In particular, Cromwell took no steps to enforce the 1651 Navigation Act
Navigation Acts
The English Navigation Acts were a series of laws that restricted the use of foreign shipping for trade between England and its colonies, a process which had started in 1651. Their goal was to force colonial development into lines favorable to England, and stop direct colonial trade with the...
against the colony's merchants, and also overlooked complaints about the colony's repressive tactics against religious nonconformists. The latter occurred despite Leverett's personal opposition to the colony's extreme stance on religion. A common claim that Leverett was knighted by Charles II lacks a solid foundation in the documentary record.
Military rule of Acadia
In 1651 England and the Netherlands went to warFirst Anglo-Dutch War
The First Anglo–Dutch War was the first of the four Anglo–Dutch Wars. It was fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Caused by disputes over trade, the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but...
. Word of this arrived in the New World in 1652, and rumors flew around the English colonies of New England that the Dutch in New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
were conspiring with all of the region's Indians to make war against them. Leverett and Robert Sedgwick both saw a significant benefit for their trading operations if the Dutch could be eliminated as competitors, and lobbied for military action against New Amsterdam, although religious moderates like Simon Bradstreet
Simon Bradstreet
Simon Bradstreet was a colonial magistrate, businessman, diplomat, and the last governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arriving in Massachusetts on the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, Bradstreet was almost constantly involved in the politics of the colony but became its governor only in 1679...
were opposed to it. New Amsterdam's Director-General
Director-General of New Netherland
This is a list of Directors, appointed by the Dutch West India Company, of the 17th century Dutch province of New Netherland in North America...
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...
invited a delegation from New England colonies to New Amsterdam to discuss the matter. Leverett was one of the commissioners sent in 1653; he took careful note of the colony's defenses while he was there. The New Haven Colony
New Haven Colony
The New Haven Colony was an English colonial venture in present-day Connecticut in North America from 1637 to 1662.- Quinnipiac Colony :A Puritan minister named John Davenport led his flock from exile in the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637...
petitioned the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell for assistance against the Dutch threat, a position supported by Leverett, who went to England with Sedgwick in 1653 to press the colonial case for war.
Treaty of Westminster (1654)
The Treaty of Westminster was signed on 8 May 1654, which ended the First Anglo-Dutch War . Based on the terms of the accord, the United Provinces recognized Oliver Cromwell's Navigation Acts, which required that imports to the Commonwealth of England must be carried in English ships, or ships from...
between the English and Dutch. Sedgwick took advantage of his commission to act instead against the French in neighboring Acadia
Acadia
Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
, which was home to privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
s who preyed on English shipping. He captured the principal Acadian ports of Port Royal
Port Royal, Nova Scotia
Port Royal was the capital of Acadia from 1605 to 1710 and is now a town called Annapolis Royal in the western part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Initially Port Royal was located on the north shore of the Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia, at the site of the present reconstruction of the...
and Fort Pentagouet in July 1654. Sedgwick gave military command of the province to Leverett. Leverett governed Nova Scotia for three years, turning command over to Sir Thomas Temple
Thomas Temple
Sir Thomas Temple, 1st Baronet was a British proprietor, governor of Acadia/ Nova Scotia...
in May 1657. During this time he and Sedgwick enforced a virtual trade monopoly on French Acadia for their benefit, leading some in the colony to view Leverett as a predatory opportunist. Leverett funded much of the cost of the occupation himself, and then petitioned Cromwell's government for reimbursement. Although Cromwell authorized payment, he made it contingent on the colony performing an audit of Leverett's finances, which never took place. Leverett was consequently still petitioning for compensation after the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
(1660).
Military command and governorship
From 1663 to 1673 he held the rank of major-general of the Massachusetts militiaMassachusetts militia
Militia of the Colony and later Commonwealth of Massachusetts.-List of Massachusetts militia units of the American Revolution:*Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts *Cogswell's Regiment of Militia...
, and was repeatedly elected as a deputy to the general court or to the council of assistants. During this time he oversaw the strengthening of Boston's defenses. He was also again sent to the colonial settlements of New Hampshire and southern Maine, where some colonists had objected to Massachusetts rule and arrested colonial officials.
Following the restoration of Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
to the throne, all of England's colonies came under his scrutiny. In 1665 Charles sent four commissioners to Massachusetts. They were instructed to gain the colony's agreement to terms demanded by Charles in a letter he sent to the colonial government in 1662, in which he instructed the colony to adopt more tolerant religious laws, and to enforce the Navigation Acts. The arrival of the commissioners was of some concern to the government, and Leverett was placed on a committee to draft a petition to the king demanding the commission's recall. The document they drafted characterized the commissioners as "agents of evil sent to Massachusetts to subvert its charter and destroy its independence."
Leverett served as deputy governor under governor Richard Bellingham
Richard Bellingham
Richard Bellingham was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death...
in 1671–1672, and succeeded to his position after the governor's death. His tenure as governor was chiefly notable because of King Philip's War
King Philip's War
King Philip's War, sometimes called Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–76. The war is named after the main leader of the...
, and the rising threats to the colonial charter that culminated in its revocation in 1684. The colony angered the king by purchasing the claims of Sir Ferdinando Gorges
Ferdinando Gorges
Sir Ferdinando Gorges , the "Father of English Colonization in North America", was an early English colonial entrepreneur and founder of the Province of Maine in 1622, although Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.-Biography:...
to portions of Maine in 1677, a territory Charles had intended to acquire for his son, the Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, KG, PC , was an English nobleman. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Lucy Walter...
. Edward Randolph
Edward Randolph (colonial administrator)
Edward Randolph was an English colonial administrator, best known for his role in effecting significant changes in the structure of the England's North American colonies in the later years of the 17th century...
, sent by Charles to report on the New England colonies, reported in 1676 that 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".
Although Leverett favored religious tolerance, there were still many in the colony who did not. Baptists were able to openly begin worship in Boston during his tenure, but he has also been criticized by Quaker historians for harsh anti-Quaker laws passed in 1677. (The Baptists' time in Boston did not last — they were thrown out in 1680 after Simon Bradstreet became governor.)
Death and legacy
Leverett died in office, reportedly from complications of kidney stones, on 16 March 1678/9, and was interred at the King's Chapel Burying GroundKing's Chapel Burying Ground
King's Chapel Burying Ground is a historic cemetery at King's Chapel on Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest cemetery in the city and is a site on the Freedom Trail....
in Boston. His descendants include his grandson John
John Leverett the Younger
John Leverett was an early American lawyer, politician, educator, and President of Harvard University.John Leverett was the son of Hudson Leverett, an attorney, and Sarah Leverett,...
, the seventh President of Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
, and Leverett Saltonstall
Leverett Saltonstall
Leverett A. Saltonstall was an American Republican politician who served as the 55th Governor of Massachusetts and as a United States Senator .-Biography:...
, a 19th century governor of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. Leverett, Massachusetts
Leverett, Massachusetts
Leverett is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,663 as of the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.- History :...
is named for his grandson.
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...
wrote of Leverett that he was "one to whom the affections of the freemen were signalised his quick advances through the lesser stages of honor and office, unto the highest in the country; and one whose courage had been as much recommended by martial actions abroad in his younger years, as his wisdom and justice were now at home in his elder."