Levi Yale

Portrait of Levi Yale, postmaster and agent of the Underground Railroad network in Connecticut

Levi Yale (April 11, 1792 – February 19, 1872), of Meriden, Connecticut, was a postmaster, justice of the peace and abolitionist, who worked as an agent of the Underground Railroad. He was a member of the state legislature, cofounded the abolitionist Liberty Party of Connecticut and was twice nominated for lieutenant governor under Senator Francis Gillette.

Early life

Levi Yale was born April 11, 1792, to Joel Yale and Esther Clark, members of the Yale family.^[1][2] He was a great-grandson of Capt. Thomas Yale of Wallingford.^[2] His uncle Thomas Yale was a soldier during the American War of Independence, enlisted in Capt. John Couch's company, and was married to Capt. Couch's daughter. His cousin Asahel Yale was a doctor in New York, and his aunt Rebecca married to Capt. Noah Parsons. Levi Yale was also cousin of Yale graduates Congressman Jonathan Brace and American life insurance founder Thomas Kimberly Brace, as well as of Senators Kenneth S. White and John Baldwin.^[3]

A more distant cousin, Bertrand L. Yale, was the owner of a large insurance business and became postmaster.^[4] Levi Yale's father, Levi Sr., was a merchant, postmaster, and soldier in the War of 1812, brother of Rosetta Yale, whose granddaughter married Judge James Perry Platt, son of Senator and Congressman Orville H. Platt.^[4][5] He was also the uncle-in-law of General Edwin R. Yale of the U.S. Hotel in Manhattan and the Mansion House in Brooklyn Heights.

Levi Yale was the oldest of a large family of children and at the death of his father, he became the main support of his mother, at 12 years of age.^[6] At the age of 16 he began teaching school in the winter and farming his mother's land in the summer.^[1][7] At 19 years of age, in 1811, he was elected pathmaster of Meriden at the town council meeting.^[8]

Career

Connecticut State House, Hartford, Connecticut, in the late 1890s, Levi Yale, Justice of the peace, was a member of the house of representatives

In 1821, Yale was elected a member of the Connecticut State House of representatives, and figured prominently during the agitation of the anti-slavery question, jeopardizing his life number of times in defense of anti-slavery principles.^[9][7]

The Liberator, abolitionist newspaper, exhibit at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

In the fall of 1837, Yale requested with Major Cowles, Julius Pratt, and a few others, to have Rev. Henry G. Ludlow, an abolitionist lecturer, give a speech at the old Center church in Meriden.^[10][11] Prominent pro-slavery businessmen used their influence to try to prevent the meeting from being held in town.^[12] They organized riots across different cities, using force if necessary, as during this period, being an abolitionist was a reproach, and violence often resulted.^[11]

The day of the meeting, stones and eggs were thrown at men, women and children.^[10] Levi Yale and two others acted as body-guards, protecting and escorting Reverend Ludlow out of the church.^[11] This was about 30 years before the American Civil War led by Abraham Lincoln, at the time of the presidency of Martin Van Buren, which brought new heights to the slavery question.^[11]

Yale then became an agent of the Underground Railroad in Connecticut, along with lieutenant governor Benjamin Douglas, Rev. George William Perkins, and others.^[13] Douglas replaced Julius Catlin as Lt. Gov. of Connecticut, the father-in-law of philanthropist Laura Wood Catlin, another member of the Yale family.^[14] Her in-laws included robber baron Trenor W. Park and Senator Chauncey Depew, member of the Skulls and Bones, and President of N. Y. Central Railroad for Commodore Vanderbilt.

Yale's home was a station of the Underground Railroad, and he has been described as "a man of very pronounced views against slavery, and one who had the courage of his convictions."^[15][6] Number of runaways found "food and harbor" at his farmhouse, and with Rev. Zolva Whitmore, they helped conduct fugitives from New Haven to Springfield.^[16]

Along with two manufacturers in Meriden, they voted for the Liberty Party, and as a result, had their shops burned by pro-slavery men.^[17] Yale was ridiculed for his aid to the runways at the time.^[17] In 1839, he was elected Justice of the Peace and postmaster.^[18][19] He was a cofounder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Guilford and was elected a trustee.^[20]

Later life

The wholesale grocer store of Levi Yale's nephew, Edward P. Yale, named Yale, Bryan & Co., in New Haven, Connecticut, 1888

In 1841, Levi Yale cofounded the Liberty Party of Connecticut and was appointed president at the Political Anti-Slavery Convention, with General Uriel Tuttle as vice-president, whose home was also a station for the Underground Railroad.^[21] As president of the convention, he wrote, signed and published in newspapers a letter requesting the President of the United States, John Tyler, to emancipate his slaves.^[22][23] The Party would later merge with four other political parties and become the Republican Party of the United States in 1854.

In 1841, and from 1843 to 1849, he was candidate for lieutenant governor of Connecticut under U.S. Senator Francis Gillette, the party's candidate for governor, losing on each occasion to William S. Holabird, Reuben Booth, Noyes Billings, Thomas Backus and Charles J. McCurdy, later U.S. Ambassador of Austria.^[21][24][25]

About the same time in 1841, Yale is featured in The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, at the clerical convention of ministers and members of the churches of Connecticut.^[26] He was elected among the first selectmen of Meriden from 1845 to 1848, and then from 1852 to 1853.^[1][27] He was a cofounder of the city town hall, being part of their committee, and cofounded the Meriden Savings Bank, with merchant Ashbel Griswold, merchant Bertrand L. Yale, Major General Walter Booth, and others.^[28][29]

He was also elected a board director of the bank, now the oldest banking institution in the city. In 1851, Yale was candidate for Judge of Probate of Meriden but lost to Hiram Hall. In 1857, he was elected a member of the Connecticut State Legislature from Meriden.^[30] In 1861, he was candidate for State Senator but lost to Orville H. Platt, later U.S. Senator and Secretary of State of Connecticut.^[24]

Death

Levi Yale died February 19, 1872, at Meriden. He was married to Abigail Ellen Bacon, of Middletown, Connecticut. They had three children together, two daughters, Harriet Ellen and Emma Louisa, and a son named Levi Bacon Yale. Levi B. was a Republican, Prohibition candidate, nominated for Senator in the 6th District in 1900, and was an active member of the Congregational Church.^[1]

His nephew was a wholesale grocer in New Haven, Connecticut, named Edward Payson Yale, founder of Yale, Bryan & Co., one of the oldest wholesale grocery houses in Connecticut.^[2][31] Yale initially started the enterprise in 1857 under Stout, Yale & Co., with city council member Jerome L. Stout, and became the sole agents for a number of the largest flouring mills in the West, in addition to manufacturing coffee, tea, canned goods, and other items.^[32] He was also the proprietor of the Yale Brick Company in Berlin, Connecticut, and a real estate investor.^[33][34]

References

1. Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven County, Connecticut, J. H. Beers & Co, Chicago, 1902, p. 73-74
2. Rodney Horace Yale (1908). "Yale Genealogy and History of Wales. The British Kings and Princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale". Archive.org. Milburn and Scott company. p. 148.
3. Yale, Ira (1783-1864) — of Wallingford, Index to Politicians, The Political Graveyard, Database of American History, 2024
4. Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 624-625
5. Rodney Horace Yale (1908). "Yale Genealogy and History of Wales. The British Kings and Princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale". Archive.org. Milburn and Scott company. pp. 201–293–435.
6. Strother, Horatio T. (1962). Underground railroad in Connecticut, Wesleyan University Press, p. 86-117
7. Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 656
8. Galpin, Henry J. (1906). Annals of Oxford, New York, Times Book and Job Printing House, p. 356
9. Roll of State Officers and Members of General Assembly of Connecticut, from 1776 to 1881, p. 240
10. Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 546
11. Hungerford, Edward (1877). Centennial Sermons on the History of the Center Congregational Church of Meriden, Conn., Case, Lockwood & Brainard Publishers, Hartford, p. 54-55
12. History of Wallingford, Charles Henry Stanley Davis, Harvard College Library, 1870, p. 503
13. Strother, Horatio T. (1962). Underground railroad in Connecticut, Wesleyan University Press, p. 86-117
14. Rodney Horace Yale (1908). "Yale genealogy and history of Wales. The British kings and princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale". Milburn and Scott company. pp. 372–373.
15. The Journal, 28 Mar 1900, Wed ·Page 5
16. Louis J. Rocco (2020). "Full of Light and Fire": John Brown in Springfield, University of Massachusetts, Boston p. 33
17. Aella Greene, "The Underground Railroad and Those Who Operated It, Part II," Republican, March 25, 1900
18. Green's Connecticut Annual Register and United States Calendar, The Connecticut Register, State Calendar of Public Officers and Institutions in Connecticut for 1857, High Water for New York, F. A. Brown, Press of Case Tiffany and Company, 1857, p. 38.
19. The Connecticut annual register, and United States' calendar, embracing the political year 1839, p. 33-108
20. Smith, James H. (1880). History of Chenango and Madison Counties, Chapter XX. Town of Guilford, D. Mason & Co. - Syracuse, New York
21. Charter Oak : Free Principles, Free Men, Free Speech and a Free Press, Executive Committee of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society, Hartford, Vol. IV., No. 6, October, 1841, p. 4
22. Charter Oak : Free Principles, Free Men, Free Speech and a Free Press, Executive Committee of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society, Hartford, Vol. IV., No. 6, October, 1841, p. 4
23. The Western Star. (Lebanon, Ohio), 1841-10-15, Volume 36, p. 1, last column
24. Office of the Secretary of the State, Levi Yale, Past Contests
25. The City of Hartford, Levi Yale, Past Contests
26. The Liberator, Boston, Friday, December 1, 1843, Vol. XIIL, No. 48, Whole No. 678, p. 190, first column
27. Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 460-461
28. Special Acts & Resolves of Connecticut, Incorporating the Meriden Savings Bank, p. 172
29. Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 507
30. Rockey, J. L. (1892) History of New Haven County, Connecticut, New York : W. W. Preston, Americana, p. 90
31. History of the City of New Haven to the Present Time, Part II, Edward Alias Atwater, Munsell & Co., New York, 1887, p. 515
32. Municipal Year Book, City of New Haven, Harvard University, 1944, p. 62
33. The Journal, 07 Nov 1896, Sat ·Page 1
34. Leading Business Men of New Haven County, William Hale Beckford, Mercentaile Publishing Co. Boston, 1887, p. 83