:Ashley Day Leavitt

{{Infobox person

|name = Ashley Day Leavitt

|image = AshleyDayLeavitt1900.PNG

|image_size =150px

|caption = 1900 Skull and Bones member

|birth_name = Ashley Day Leavitt

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1877|10|10}}

|birth_place = Chicago, Illinois

|death_date =

|death_place =

|death_cause =

|resting_place =

|resting_place_coordinates =

|nationality = American

|citizenship =

|known_for = Congregational minister

|education =

|alma_mater = Yale University

|years_active =

|title = Rev. Dr.

|spouse = Myrtle Rose Hart of Barkhamsted, Connecticut

|children = 2, including Hart Day Leavitt

|parents =

|signature =

|website =

}}

Ashley Day Leavitt (1877–1959) was a Yale-educated Congregational minister who led the State Street Church in Portland, Maine, and later the Harvard Congregational Church in Brookline, Massachusetts. Leavitt was a frequent public speaker during the early twentieth century, and was awarded an honorary degree from Bowdoin College for his pastorship of several congregations during wartime.

Early years

Ashley Leavitt's father was Burke Fay Leavitt. In 1868, Leavitt's father Burke was living in Melrose Highlands, Massachusetts and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, an academic honor society.{{cite book|last=Parsons|first=Eben Burt|year=1900|title=Phi Beta Kappa Hand-book and General Address Catalogue of the United Chapters|page=[https://archive.org/details/phibetakappahan00parsgoog/page/n231 227]|publisher=Walden & Crawley|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://archive.org/details/phibetakappahan00parsgoog|quote=burke f. leavitt.}} Burke subsequently became a minister for the United Church of Christ, and served as pastor of the denominations' first church in Maine at Williston in suburban Portland, Maine from 1872 to 1876.{{cite web|date=April 4, 2000 |work=Williston-West Church |title=A Brief History of Williston-West Church, 1873–1996, Williston-West Church, Portland, Maine |access-date=13 December 2008 |url=http://www.willistonwest.org/history.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080616100321/http://www.willistonwest.org/history.htm |archive-date=16 June 2008 }}

Ashley Day Leavitt was born October 10, 1877, in Chicago, Illinois to Burke Fay and Lena (Day) Leavitt. Leavitt's name "Ashley" was taken from that of the maiden name of the wife of his ancestor Dr. Roswell Leavitt,{{cite book|last=Montague|first=William Lewis|year=1883|title=Biographical Record of the Alumni of Amherst College During Its First Half Century, 1821–1871|page=[https://archive.org/details/biographicalrec00crowgoog/page/n30 24]|publisher=s.n|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://archive.org/details/biographicalrec00crowgoog|quote=ashley leavitt.}} a Massachusetts native and longtime physician in Cornish, New Hampshire who married Dorothy Ashley, a native of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1798 in Greenfield, Massachusetts.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nYlbAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22roswell+leavitt%22&pg=PA197 | title=The Genealogy and History of the Family of Williams in America | last1=Williams | first1=Stephen West | date=1847 |page=197 |publisher=Merriam & Mirick }} Leavitt's father went on to be pastor at the Town Church of Manchester, New Hampshire in 1893.{{cite book|last=Chalmers|first=Thomas|year=1903|title=The Town Church of Manchester|page=[https://archive.org/details/townchurchmanch00chalgoog/page/n140 126]|publisher=Jubilee Committee|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://archive.org/details/townchurchmanch00chalgoog|quote=burke f. leavitt.}} From at least 1900 to 1909, his father was a minister of Melrose Highlands Congregational Church in Melrose, Massachusetts,{{cite book|last=Goss|first=Elbridge Henry|year=1903|title=The History of Melrose, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts|page=[https://archive.org/details/historymelrosec00gossgoog/page/n190 160]|publisher=Melrose, Massachusetts|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://archive.org/details/historymelrosec00gossgoog|quote=burke f. leavitt.|isbn=1407656805}}{{cite news|date=September 24, 1909|work=The New York Times|title=Gertrude Lawson Weds|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/09/24/101899078.pdf }} and later took up a pastor's post in Lincoln Park in suburban Chicago.

Leavitt himself was educated at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then at Yale College. In 1900, Leavitt was a member of Skull and Bones,{{cite web|date=September 16, 2008|work=The Manuscripts and Archives Digital Images Database (MADID)|title=Members of Skull and Bones|publisher=Yale University Library|access-date=13 December 2008|url=http://images.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=1406571&q=Ashley%20Leavitt&q1=&q2=&qc1=&qc2=&qf1=&qf2=&qn=&qo=&qm=&qs=&sid=&qx=}} an elite secret society based at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. He also was on the Yale debating team.{{cite news|date=December 4, 1898|work=The New York Times|title=The Yale-Princeton Debate|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1898/12/04/102080221.pdf }} From Yale, Leavitt attended Hartford Theological Seminary.

File:SkullAndBonesMembers1900.PNG

Leavitt's first ministerial job was as assistant pastor of South Church in Hartford, Connecticut, then subsequently at Congregational churches in Willimantic, Connecticut, Concord, New Hampshire and at Portland, Maine. In June 1903, Leavitt gave a speech at the Yale alumni meeting and Medical School anniversary exercise.{{cite news|date=June 24, 1903|work=The New York Times|title=Yale Festivities. Alumni Meeting and Anniversary Exercises of the Medical School|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/06/24/290329942.pdf }} On September 7, 1904, Leavitt married Myrtle Rose Hart of Barkhamsted, Connecticut.{{cite book|last=Gilbert|first=Eliza Howe |year=1920|title=A Record of the Benjamin Gilbert Branch of the Gilbert Family in America (1620–1920): Also the Genealogy of the Falconer Family, of Nairnshire, Scotland 1720–1920, to which Belonged Benjamin Gilbert's Wife, Mary Falconer|page=[https://archive.org/details/recordbenjaming00gilbgoog/page/n38 28]|publisher=Johnson City Publishing Company|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://archive.org/details/recordbenjaming00gilbgoog|quote=ashley day leavitt.}} They had two children: Hart Day Leavitt, a longtime professor of English at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts; and Julia Leavitt, born at Cumberland, Maine, in 1915. While at Portland, Maine, Leavitt was honored with giving the 1905 undergraduate commencement speech at the University of Connecticut, where he spoke on "The Individual, Law and Liberty."{{cite web|year=2008 |work=Commencement Speakers in the 1900s |title=Commencement Speakers, History of Undergraduate Commencement |publisher=University of Connecticut |access-date=13 December 2008 |url=http://news.uconn.edu/commencement/speakers/1900s.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705182912/http://news.uconn.edu/commencement/speakers/1900s.php |archive-date=July 5, 2008 }}

World War I

Leavitt enlisted and served in YMCA camps at home and abroad during World War I.{{cite book|last=Nettleton|first=George H.|year=2005|title=Yale in the World War, part one|page=420|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|isbn=076619695X|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a7gIX6_9DX4C&q=%22ashley+d.+leavitt%22&pg=PA420}} The YMCA's own World War I efforts were memorialized in Yip Yip Yaphank, a Broadway musical developed in 1917 by Irving Berlin to include a song entitled "I Can Always Find a Little Sunshine in the Y.M.C.A."

At the height of World War I in 1918, Leavitt was the Pastor of the State Street Congregational Church in Portland.{{cite web|last=Archives Staff |year=2004 |work=George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives |title=Honoris Causa, Doctor of Divinity |publisher=Bowdoin College |access-date=13 December 2008 |url=http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject/bowdoin/honors/leavitt18.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030910200804/http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject/bowdoin/honors/leavitt18.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=10 September 2003 }} In awarding Leavitt a Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) honorary degree that same year,{{cite web|last=Archives Staff|year=2004|work=George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives|title=Honorary Degree Recipients|publisher=Bowdoin College|access-date=13 December 2008|url=http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject/bowdoin/honorary.shtml#1919|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906142201/http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject/bowdoin/honorary.shtml#1919|archive-date=6 September 2008|url-status=dead}} Bowdoin College noted that Leavitt "at all times an eloquent preacher of Christian duty, and in wartime a convincing teacher of the principle that only the righteous nation that keepeth truth may enter in the gates of the Kingdom."

In 1921, Leavitt was serving in a two-year position on the Congregational Educational Foundation.{{cite book|last=National council of the Congregational churches of the United States|author-link=National Council of Churches|year=1921|title=Reports|page=13|access-date=13 December 2008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VEhKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ashley+leavitt%22&pg=PA13}} In June 1925, he conducted the services in Appleton Chapel at Harvard University.{{cite news|date=June 13, 1925|work=The Harvard Crimson|title=University Chapel|access-date=13 December 2008|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=429102}} Rev. Leavitt also frequently spoke at the graduation exercises of nearby Radcliffe College.

Image:Mem6.jpg, Harvard University. Rev. Ashley Day Leavitt of Harvard Congregational Church in nearby Brookline often led worship at Appleton Chapel and Harvard Memorial Church which replaced it.]]

In 1927, Leavitt was the pastor at Harvard Church.{{cite book|last=Park|first=Steven H.|year=1999|title=Tending the Vineyard: Maritime Religion on Martha's Vineyard from 1824–1978|page=8|publisher=University of Connecticut}} In December of that year, he attended the Centennial of the Boston Seaman's Friend Society and spoke about the predecessors to the society,

But this Society was the successor of another organization which was called 'The Society for the Moral and Religious Improvement of the Poor'. That is the kind of thing they were doing one hundred years ago. This Society for the Moral and Religious Improvement of the Poor was the successor of another Society for the Moral and Religious Instruction of the Seaman. Fancy trying to do business in such an organization today! But that is what they had in a great deal of their religion a hundred years ago - a kind of condescension. The people that were capable the people that were fortunate, went out in pity to do work for the unfortunate, and they expected a certain subserviency and obeisance on the part of those who were the recipients of the benefaction. A finer democracy has come now ... No Christian today thinks of going out to elevate his fellow man.

In November 1928, Swami Yogananda spoke to the Harvard Congregational Church during Leavitt's tenure, and Leavitt later wrote to the Swami thanking him for the speech: "Best of all was the background of fine understanding which made all feel in the same human brotherhood with you."{{cite journal|last=Yogananda|first=Swami|date=February 1929|journal =East-West|title=Quickening Human Evolution|volume=4|issue=1}}

Prior to 1941, Leavitt was a frequent speaker at Phillips Academy,{{cite news|date=November 18, 1939|work=The Phillipian|title=Dr. Ashley Day Leavitt Will Preach In Chapel|volume=64-19|page=1|access-date=13 December 2008|url=http://pdf.phillipian.net/1939/11181939.pdf}}{{cite news|date=December 7, 1940|work=The Phillipian|title=Dr. Ashley Day Leavitt to be Preacher Tomorrow|volume=65-24|page=1|access-date=13 December 2008|url=http://pdf.phillipian.net/1940/12071940.pdf}} the same University preparatory school in Andover where his son Hart, a graduate of Andover's rival Phillips Exeter Academy, had become a professor. In 1948, Leavitt spoke at Union Chapel at Little Boar's Head, New Hampshire.{{cite news|date=July 7, 1948|title=The Beachcomber|access-date=13 December 2008|url=http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/newspapers/beachcomber/19480707.htm}}

Selected publications

{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=Ashley Day|year=1914|title=Of First Importance: A Sermon Preached at State St. Congregational Church, Portland, Maine, April 26, 1914|publisher=s.n|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FT0_HQAACAAJ}}
{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=Ashley Day|year=1917|title=The Present Crisis: A Sermon|publisher=State Street Congregational Church|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FJDVHAAACAAJ}}
{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=Ashley Day|year=1925 |title=Jesus and the Jury: A Living Faith for Living Men|publisher=The Pilgrim Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PbaeGQAACAAJ}}
{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=Ashley Day|year=1938|title=Just a Moment: Briefest Comments on Religion and Life|publisher=W.A. Wilde|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NnbDGwAACAAJ}}
{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=Ashley Day|date= |title=Furnished Lives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OApEGwAACAAJ}}