Joseph Leavitt

Private Joseph Leavitt (1757–1839) was an early settler of Maine, who moved to what was then the frontier of Massachusetts after serving three months in the Continental Army at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, and then declaring that he was unable to bear arms in conflict.

On account of his pacifist sentiments, 'Quaker Joe,' as he became known for the rest of his life, was awarded with a house lot next to the new Turner meetinghouse when it was eventually built.

[3] The family originated at Hingham, some 17 miles away, in the seventeenth century when English settler deacon John Leavitt removed there from Boston.

At the outbreak of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War in 1775, Joseph Leavitt enlisted as Private in the Continental Army for an initial three-month period of service.

Later that same year Leavitt left his meager belongings in the care of Algonquins and returned again to Pembroke, where he married Anna Stevens.

Leavitt's first wife Anna (Stevens) bore eight children, the oldest of whom was the first male child born in the new township of Turner.

Ultimately Joseph Leavitt's father Jacob departed Pembroke, Massachusetts, and joined his son at his new Maine lodgings.