Dudley Leavitt (1772 – September 20, 1851) was an American publisher. He was an early graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in his native town of Exeter, New Hampshire, and later moved to Gilmanton where he first edited a newspaper and taught school. Within a few years, Leavitt relocated to Meredith, where in addition to teaching school and farming, he began publishing in 1797 Leavitt's Farmers Almanack, one of the nation's earliest farmers' almanacs. A polymath, Leavitt poured his knowledge of disparate fields including mathematics, language and astronomy into the wildly popular almanacs, which outlived their creator, being published until 1896. The inaugural issue of 1797 carried the title of The New England Calendar: Or, Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1797. On the cover was the disclaimer that the new publication was "Calculated for the Meridian of Concord, Latitude 43° 14' N. Longitude 72° 45' W.: And with But Little Variation Will Answer for Any of the New England States."
Youth and early career
Dudley Leavitt was born at Exeter, the oldest child of farmer and landowner Joshua Leavitt and Elizabeth (née James). He was named after Governor Thomas Dudley, the second colonial governor of Massachusetts, from whom both parents descended. The descendant of early Exeter settlers, his father Joshua moved from Exeter to Deerfield early in Dudley Leavitt's life. After attending Exeter Academy, where he graduated in 1790, Leavitt married Judith Glidden of Gilmanton in 1794, and he and his new wife took up residence in the town, where he had family. In Gilmanton, Leavitt began studying Latin and Greek under Rev. Isaac Smith. In 1802 Leavitt also served as a selectman for the town.
Leavitt's first love was mathematics and astronomy. Something of a pure scientist, Leavitt contributed scientific papers to societies until the end of his life, often having to do with astronomy and physics. The annual conventions of the American Philosophical Society often heard presentations of the latest of Leavitt's findings. Nor were Leavitt's the musings of some crackpot New Hampshire hermit. In an 1811 paper concerning astronomy addressed to the President and membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, for instance, Leavitt outlined his New and short Method of calculating the times of the First and Last Quarters of the Moon.
But with his scholarly inquiries and meager publishing income, Leavitt turned to teaching to supplement his income. In 1800 he founded the Gilmanton Gazette, a local weekly newspaper in Gilmanton, as well as the Farmer's Weekly Magazine for two years with a partner in the newly established publishing house of "Leavitt & Clough". Leavitt's foray into newspaper publishing was an apparent failure, but he was pioneer of the industry in the state. The presses used to print his early broadsheet were purchased by the proprietors of the new Concord Gazette in 1806, who paid to have the presses lugged from Gilmanton to Concord on a two-horse wagon so they could begin printing one of the capital's earliest newspapers, and the only competitor of The New Hampshire Patriot.
Discouraged with the economics of newspaper publishing, Leavitt and his wife decided to move to Meredith in 1819. Pursuing another avenue of work, Leavitt ran an advertisement in the Concord Observer newspaper announcing that he was opening the "Meredith Academick School". The new school, its headmaster announced, would "offer instruction in the various grades usually taught in academies.... No pains will be spared on the part of the instructor to render the acquisition of useful knowledge easy and pleasant to those young gentlemen and ladies who may attend the School."
The "reasonable" board would cost $3.00 for each quarter's enrolment, Leavitt announced in his initial advertisement, and would cover most fields of study, except "Algebra, Navigation, Gunnery, or the Science of Projectiles, &c., Spherick Geometry & Trigonometry, Astronomy & Philosophy." For study in those more complicated fields Leavitt proposed to charge an additional 50 cents tuition for each quarter of enrolment. Around Meredith the new schoolmaster became known as "Old Master Leavitt".