 Four years after the conflict ended, his widow remarried Storer S. Knight of Portland, where George Baker Leavitt was raised, along with three children born to his mother by her second husband.Like other early Maine Yankees, George Baker Leavitt decided to make his living from the sea and embarked on a career aboard whaling ships sailing from the thriving Massachusetts seaport of New Bedford.Leavitt joined the fleet at an early age, and first served in a succession of minor posts such as second mate, before eventually earning the right to captain his own vessel.