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". Leavitt settled on his Meredith farm near Center Harbor, less than a mile from Lake Winnipesaukee, where he held his classes. He was known as a stern taskmaster who did not suffer fools, or wisecracking students. But Leavitt had enough of a sense of whimsy that he handpainted panels of "Award of Merit" to those students he felt met his stringent guidelines. (Leavitt never gave up teaching, even when busying himself with his almanac and other projects. He taught school into his 70s, and it was customary in New Hampshire for successful men to boast that they had been educated by Leavitt.) When not teaching, he was to be found farming his or immersed in study. Stories were legion of Leavitt so immersed in reading or study that he was oblivious to