A SHORT HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF JOHN LEAVITT
AND HIS WIFE, MARY ANN KITTLEMAN
by Joy Viehweg
June 2003

On March 18, 1827 in Compton, Stanstead, Quebec, Canada, the birth cries of John, the youngest child of Nathaniel and Deborah Delano Leavitt were heard. Deborah's Delano family line goes back to early New England and from there to Leyden, Holland where the Pilgrims had gone to escape religious persecution in England. The Delano name had originally been De La Noye and De Lannoy. (This is the family from which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt also descended.)

John's Leavitt lineage traces back to Deacon John Leavitt who came from England and settled in Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. No doubt young John carried his name proudly knowing that the Leavitts of New England and Canada were prosperous and known as leaders in the community. Another reason for John to feel pride in his given name is that he was a nephew namesake of his father's younger brother, John.

Nathaniel married Deborah Delano in about 1817. Purchasing land in Irasburg, Orleans County, Vermont in that same year, Nathaniel and his new bride moved to establish their home on the road from Irasburg to Brownington, Vermont. Their first child, a daughter named Salena was born in about their first year of marriage. In 1817 or 1818 their second daughter was born. This was Roxana, a little girl who was named for her mother's younger sister, Roxana Delano. The third daughter, Caroline Elizabeth, was born in Vermont in 1819.

The Nathaniel Leavitt family moved just over the national boundary into Canada from Irasburg, in 1819. They chose to live at Hatley in the Compton area of Stanstead County of Quebec. Sadly, John's mother, Deborah, died in 1829 when John was only 2 ½ years old. John's other siblings, all born in the Hatley area, were Nathaniel Jr., and Flavilla Lucy. What a tragedy this was for Nathaniel and his young children! The oldest child, Salena, was twelve years old.

John's father, Nathaniel, at this point really needed a mother for his six youngsters. A few months after the demise of Deborah, he married Miss Betsey Bean.. One has to admire the courage and fortitude of this new bride. She was just sixteen at the time of her marriage to Nathaniel, and she was taking on the responsibility of a half dozen stepchildren. Betsy was only four years older than Nathaniel's oldest daughter, Salena. This new marriage eventually produced three children, Priscilla, Mary and Weir (Weare).

After hearing of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from missionaries in Hatley, several Leavitt families prepared to leave Canada and travel by wagon train to Kirtland, Ohio to join the members of that church. With Mother Sarah Shannon Leavitt at age 76 and widow of Jeremiah as the matriarch of the group, 52 of the related kin left Canada 20 July, 1837, hoping to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith and mingle their lives with those of his followers. With Nathaniel's group was his wife, Betsey, and their three young children and his three youngest children by his first wife, Nathaniel, Jr., Flavilla, and John.. Also with the group was Nathaniel's younger, single brother, Josiah Leavitt. Two daughters of Nathaniel and Deborah, Caroline Elizabeth and Salena, elected to stay behind rather than travel with the Leavitts leaving for Ohio. Salena had married Joseph Kezar and had two small children. Caroline was living in Vermont, probably with her Delano relatives. Roxana, still unmarried, was traveling with other Leavitt relatives.

While the large part of the group traveled by land to Ohio, Nathaniel had a different idea. When his family group arrived in Buffalo, NewYork, he decided to cut his wagon trip short and to go by boat across Lake Erie, docking in Detroit, Michigan. Nathaniel must have been relatively comfortable financially to be able to undertake a venture like this. It certainly made an easier trip for his family. From Detroit he and his family traveled again by wagon to White Pigeon, Michigan where he rented a farm for a year. This was 1837.

All seemed to be going well for that year until disaster struck in the summer of 1838. Both Nathaniel and his brother, Josiah, died! That the two brothers would be taken in death near the same time makes one wonder about possible reasons - cholera, the ague and other communicable diseases took many lives. One can only imagine how frightened and discouraged young Betsey must have been then. In desperation she decided to sell what she could and to take her three little ones back to Canada. A kind offer was made on her part to take the three older children with her, but Nathaniel, Jr. at age 14 had a strong testimony of the Gospel and wanted to find the other Leavitt families. He persuaded Flavilla, age 12, and John, age 11, to stay with him. This took great courage on the part of these young siblings. Betsy did safely return to Hatley. The descendants of her three children are now being sought and found through the efforts of the Western Association of Leavitt Families.

One month after the death of the two brothers, Nathaniel's brother, Jeremiah, and his wife, Sarah, and their eight children who had been living in Mayfield, Ohio to earn enough money to go on, traveled through White Pigeon on the way to Twelve Mile Grove, Illinois where the other Leavitt families had settled. There they heard that Nathaniel and Josiah had died. And, much to their amazement, they found Nathaniel's three children, each in a different home, sick and poorly clothed. Picture the scene when those children saw their uncle and aunt. There must have been great rejoicing that day. The three youngest children of Nathaniel and Deborah joined with their cousins' family as they wended their way toward Twelve Mile Grove. This was, at times, a difficult journey. In addition to the huge responsibility of eleven children, Jeremiah and Sarah found that part of the trail was over a pole road which had been built over boggy land. The jostling and jarring just about shook them apart. It is a wonder that the wagon didn't disintegrate!

By the time Nathaniel, Jr., Flavilla and John were able to join the other Leavitts in that summer of 1838, John's sister, Roxana, had married Benjamin Fletcher on the 12^th of April 1838 in Will County, Illinois, and they were living in Twelve Mile Grove. But then tragedy visited the family again. Benjamin died in April of 1840 leaving Roxana with the responsibility of his three young children from a former marriage. The 1840 U.S. Census only shows the names of the heads of households. To indicate other members of the family, the enumerator marked lines to show the sex and general age groups. Roxana was shown as the head in that census. It appears from those marks in that census of Twelve Mile Grove that Flavilla and John were with Roxana in addition to Benjamin's three young children, Jane, Joseph and William. Nathaniel, Jr. would have been living with others of the Leavitt relatives. Here a close bond was forged between John and his siblings who had lost their parents and suffered much privation and sadness. Roxana undoubtedly assumed the role of surrogate mother to John, Nathaniel, Jr. and Flavilla.

The reason that the largest number of Leavitt families had bought farms at Twelve Mile Grove is that they had heard of the terrible treatment of the Mormons in Missouri and were reluctant to join them until they had settled in a safe place. In about 1839 the Leavitt families moved on to Nauvoo, Illinois, a city which was just beginning to be built under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith. By 1842 in Nauvoo Flavilla was still with Roxana who now had a new husband, John Huntsman. Nathaniel, Jr. and John were living with the family of their Uncle Horace Fish.

John and Nathaniel, Jr. probably crossed the plains with the Fish family. Later, in 1852, Flavilla and her husband of five years, Orrin Day Farlin, and Roxana, now widowed again, and with two young daughters, Salena and Ellen Orliva, traveled together as a family group across the plains in the John Tidwell wagon train..

When that wagon train got to Fort Bridger, now in Wyoming, a marvelous thing happened. In the day by day journal of the wagon company the clerk wrote, "Sept. 5^th, a Sunday; Went about five or six miles and came to Fort Bridger at noon where we stayed for dinner. At half past 1 o'clock a.m. we were met by a young man named John Leivett [sic] whose friends is in our company. He gives an excellent report of the state of things in the valley".

Can we begin to imagine what joy there was when the two sisters saw their younger brother approaching, his having left Salt Lake City to ride through the canyons and meet them? A reunion experience like this could make many of the struggles of the earlier years worth it.

About 1856 John Leavitt married Mary Ann Kittleman of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He would have been about twenty-nine years of age at that time, certainly old enough to wisely choose a fine wife to be his companion and the mother of his children. Miss Kittleman was the daughter of William Kittleman and Eliza Hindman.

To give some background relating to the Kittleman family, it must be said that in 1845 the LDS church leaders in the Eastern U.S. were strongly urging the converts to join with the body of the church, traveling by either land or by sea. The Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, had been murdered in 1844, and the persecution of the Mormon people was intensifying. Brigham Young chose a Bro. Samuel Brannan, a printer of New York City, to be the presiding elder in charge of a shipload of converts with plans to sail out of New York City on the ship "Brooklyn", travel around Cape Horn and ultimately reach the shore of "Upper California". This geographical designation included not only California, but also Nevada and Utah and was actually part of Mexico at the time. Brannan fully expected that Brigham Young would bring the Saints traveling across the plains to meet with his group on the Pacific coast.

There were 230 LDS convert passengers on the "Brooklyn", 70 men, 60 women and 100 children on the day it embarked. That day was a momentous date on the calendars of the latter-day Saints for two reasons. It was February 4, 1846, which was also the exact day when the Saints started the great exodus from the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, having been forced out at gunpoint after untold indignities and persecution. What an amazing coincidence in the timing of events taking place many hundreds of miles apart!

John Leavitt's wife, Mary Ann Kittleman, was a young girl of thirteen on the "Brooklyn" with her father and mother and her siblings; Elizabeth, George, James, and two tiny twin sisters of four months of age, Sarah Emma and Hannah. Speculation naturally makes one wonder if these tiny infant daughters could survive the dangerous voyage upon which the family was embarking. A search of the Ancestral File shows that, indeed, they did weather the hardships and grew to adulthood. Also on board were her grandfather and grandmother, John and Sarah Kittleman, ages 50 and 38, respectively, along with Mary Ann's uncles, Thomas and George Kittleman. (Mary Ann had been born Dec. 8, 1833. The Ancestral File shows her birthplace as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but it also shows that all of her siblings, both younger and older, were born in Downington, Chester County, Pennsylvania, leading one to suspect that this was Mary Ann's birthplace, also. Downington is not far from Philadelphia, so it seems possible that the family may have said that they were from Philadelphia only because it was the next larger recognizable city which was familiar to others.)

During the voyage very severe storms threatened the lives of the people on the "Brooklyn", even causing several deaths. Among babies born during the voyage were John Atlantic Burr and Georgianna Pacific Robbins. The route taken found the ship sailing close to the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa and then around Cape Horn. This route was 1000 miles farther than a direct way close to the South American coast, but, due to more favorable winds and currents, the longer route was actually the faster way to sail. This had been learned by the traders who sailed regularly to and from the Orient. With the water supply old and brackish and the wood supply low, the ship finally put in at Juan Fernandez Island which is some three hundred plus miles west of the country of Chile. This is the very island which is the site of Daniel Defoe's novel, "Robinson Crusoe" which had been written in 1719. This island furnished the passengers of the "Brooklyn" a great supply of fresh water, wood for cooking on the ship, meat in the form of goats, pigs and hares, and peaches and figs. This fruit would help greatly in warding off the disease of Scurvy which resulted from the lack of Vitamin C in the diet. Scurvy was a common malady on vessels going on long ocean trips. In history the British vessels carried limes to provide this necessary vitamin, thus resulting in British sailors being called "limeys". On the other hand German ships often stocked sauerkraut for the same purpose, this being the reason for Germans being referred to as "krauts".

Sailing on, the "Brooklyn" headed for the Sandwich Islands, now called Hawaii. Five hundred barrels of freight were delivered there, the money from which helping to pay the costs of chartering the ship. Leaving there, the "Brooklyn" sailed to Yerba Buena in Upper California, later called San Francisco. Expecting to find this small village under the control of Mexico, Brannan and the other passengers thought that they might encounter difficulties, especially since the United States was at war with that country. On the advice of Commodore Robert F. Stockton in Hawaii Brannan drilled the men on board ship in some military training. In anticipation of some kind of skirmish upon striking land, the women had even sewn suits and military caps out of blue denim for the men. However, upon sailing through the Golden Gate, they were met by the sight of a U.S. Navy vessel flying the Stars and Stripes. This ship had preceded them by two months and had taken the place without resistance of any kind. The ranking naval officer greeted the newly arrived passengers courteously by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you that you are in the United States of America". Bro. Brannan was somewhat disappointed. He had rather hoped that he and his group could have taken Yerba Buena themselves and claimed it for the United States!

The arrival date in California was July 31, 1846. Immediately tents were set up and an unbelievable assortment of tools, animals, forges, mill machinery, weapons, medical supplies and Brannan's printing press, to name a few, were unloaded with the expectation of creating a permanent settlement. Some of the Brooklyn's passengers stayed in California and some later settled in Utah. Samuel Brannan even traveled to the Midwest to try to convince Brigham Young to take the Saints to the San Francisco area rather than to the Great Basin, but he failed in his attempt. President Young would not consider such an idea. Brannan published the first newspaper in California, "The California Star", and later became the first millionaire there.

This account of the voyage of the "Brooklyn" is related with the hope that it will provide some of the rich and amazing events experienced by Mary Ann Kittleman, future wife of John Leavitt.

As mentioned, John Leavitt married Mary Ann Kittleman in Salt Lake City. They settled in the Ogden, Utah area not far from John's brother, Nathaniel, Jr. and their sister Flavilla. Seven children blessed the home of John and Mary Ann. They are listed as follows:

Mary Ann Leavitt, born Sept. 5, 1857 in Ogden
Eliza Deborah Leavitt, born Dec. 23, 1859 in Ogden
John William Leavitt, born Sept. 10, 1862 in Ogden
Nathaniel James Leavitt, born Dec. 23 1865 in Ogden
George Henry Leavitt, born Apr. I, 1870 in Ogden
Charles Lyman Leavitt, born Jan. 8, 1873 in Ogden
Eugene Leavitt, born Aug. 30, 1877 in Ogden

Merging the two vastly different backgrounds of John and Mary Ann, he having been raised in a rural setting and traveling by land from Quebec, Canada through the central part of our nation to Utah, and she being a city girl from Philadelphia and having sailed through two oceans and past the treacherous Cape Horn, on to Hawaii and then settling for a time on the California coast before journeying to Utah, combined to create many engrossing stories which were told around the fireplace in winter and around the table at mealtimes. Those tales must have been very fascinating. What a rich heritage those seven children and later generations inherited!

John Leavitt left this world at the age of seventy-two in Ogden, Utah on August 1, 1899. Mary Ann followed him to the grave June 6, 1912. Their story of their lives has become a saga which tells of hardships of the frontier, joys of family life, and ultimate fulfillment through their faith in God and in the church to which they devoted many years of service. Many lessons can be learned in this modern age as we read of the experiences which fashioned their lives.

DOCUMENTATION

1. History of Sarah Studevant Leavitt by Sarah Studevant Leavitt
2. Nathaniel Leavitt Autobiography
3. Website of the Western Association of Leavitt Families (http://www.leavittfamilies.org)
4. A Journal of the Emigration Company of Council Point, Pottawattamie County, Iowa in the Summer of 1852, Clerk George Bowering, Copied by the Brigham Young University, 1947
5. California Historical Society Quarterly, Sept. 1958, "The Ship Brooklyn" by Amelia D. Everett, pp.229-240
6. Dialogue, Vol. 21, No. 3, Autumn 1988, "Voyage of the Brooklyn" by Loren Hansen, pp. 47-72