Captain Jesse Leavenworth

Jesse Leavenworth was born 20 November 1740 in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was the only child of the Rev. Mark Leavenworth and his first wife, Ruth Peck. He was graduated from Yale at the age of 19.

When his father, Rev. Mark Leavenworth, went to Canada as Chaplain in the French war of 1760, he is said to have gone with him and to have held the rank of Lieutenant.

Jesse Leavenworth first married on 1 July 1761 to Catherine (Conkling) Frisbie, the widow of Capt. Culpepper Frisbie, and a daughter of John Conkling of Suffolk County, New York. For a few years after his marriage he lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, carrying on various kinds of businesses, and at one time kept a hotel that stood on the corner of Center Square and North Main Street. In February 1767 he bought a place in New Haven and soon moved his family there. He soon engaged in commercial affairs in New Haven.

Jesse and Catherine Leavenworth had the following children. The first three were born at Waterbury; the last four at New Haven, Connecticut:

Melinis Conklin - born 4 January 1762, died 20 July 1823

Ruth born 25 February 1764

Frederick - born 4 September 1766, died 17 May 1840

Catherine - born 1768, died 25 June 1815

Jesse - born August 1771, died 1 January 1831

Mark - born 31 August 1774, died 5 September 1849

Henry - born 10 December 1783, died 21 July 1834

The Governor's Footgards, the distinguished military company of Connecticut, was formed in March, 1775. Then Lieutenant Jesse Leavenworth served under Jonathan Trumbull in the 2nd Company of the Governor's Footguards. Trumbull had been inaugurated as Governor in 1769. Leavenworth's neighbor, Benedict Arnold, was captain of the Governor's Footguards. When news of the Battle of Lexington reached New Haven in the early spring of 1775, Arnold called out his company and asked for volunteers; forty went, Leavenworth with them.

Leavenworth was a 1st Lieutenant, 1st Connecticut, May to December, 1775. Then holding the rank of Captain, Leavenworth also commanded a company at Ticonderoga in the Spring and Summer of 1777, when the fort was abandoned by General St. Clair. He also had subsequent service in the Quartermaster’s Department.

About 1783 he became alienated from his wife and left her, taking the younger children with him. He later married his second wife Eunice Sperry. He went to Caledonia and at once became a prominent man in that part of the country. He was one of the patentees of the towns of Dansville and Peacham, October 27, 1786. He was a member of the Legislature in 1789-91-92 and 98.

Captain Jesse Leavenworth died 21 November 1824 in Sacketts Harbor, Jefferson County, New York. He was described in obituaries as "...an intrepid and intelligent officer of the French War and the Revolution. Aged 86 yrs."

Sources: Fonda List of Revolutionary War Veterans in Jefferson County (NY)
DAR Lineage Book, Volume 25
Connecticut Genealogies

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