Thomas Leavitt (settler)

"[1] He was not remarkable, except insofar as those who crossed the Atlantic, swept by storms startling to Englishmen, to settle an unknown continent, peopled by tribes with which they were unfamiliar, were unremarkable.

[4] Leavitt remained in Exeter only a few years before eventually settling at nearby Hampton, one of the four original New Hampshire townships chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts.

In 1639, Leavitt was a signer of the Exeter Combination,[6] but soon left Exeter for Hampton, where by 1644 he had married Isabella (Bland) Asten, daughter of John Bland (alias Smith) and Isabella Drake of Colchester, Essex, England (and later of Watertown, Massachusetts, and Martha's Vineyard) and widow of Francis Asten, who had died in the New World a couple of years prior.

By 1683 he, along with 18 other citizens, signed a petition asking that their poll taxes be cut as the signers were aged, "many about seventy, some above eighty, others near ninety, being past labour and work."

By 1691 Leavitt and his wife had delegated their power of attorney to son John to deal with his mother Isabel's share of the Bland family lands on Martha's Vineyard.

[11] In his will Leavitt had made provisions for his wife, leaving her land and "two cows, two swine, three sheep, my brass and puter [pewter], the thirds of all my corne.