Joshua Levering
(Prohibition Presidential Candidate 1896)

Joshua Levering was born in Baltimore, Maryland on 12 September 1846. 
     Levering was a businessman and am active Baptist layman.  He was among the founders and officers of the American Baptist Educational Society in 1888 and of the Layman’s Missionary Movement.  He also was an officer of the Southern Baptist Convention and served on the boards of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and of the International Committee of the YMCA.
     Joshua Levering switched from Democrat to Prohibitionist in 1884.  He afterward was chairman of the Maryland State Prohibition Convention in 1887 and 1893 and a frequent Maryland delegate to national Prohibition Party conventions.

-- Gammon, 2007, pp.53-54

The subject of this sketch was born in Baltimore, September 12, 1845.  He attended private schools until the spring of 1861, when the exigencies of the Civil Wear necessitated business occupation, when not 16 years old.  In 1866, he became a partner with his father in the coffee importing business under the name of E. Levering & Co., the same as at present.  Eugene Levering, Sr., died in June 1870, since which time the business has been conducted by the sons.
     In 1870, Mr. Levering was married to Martha W. daughter of Charles M. Keyser.  They have three sons and four daughters.  Mrs. Levering died in 1888, and, in 1892, Mr. Levering married Margaret Keyser, the sister of his first wife.
     Mr. Levering was converted in the winter of 1857-58 and united with the Seventh Baptist Church of Baltimore.  He became a constituent member of the Eutaw Placer Baptist Church in 1871 and the superintendent of its Sunday-school in 1881, which position he still holds.  He has been identified with the general denominational interests both North and South.  One of the originators of the American Baptist Education Society in 1888, he has been its treasurer since its organization.  He has also been vice-president for a number of years of the American Baptist Publication Society.  He has also held the position of vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention and is now the acting chairman of the board of trustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, located in Louisville, Kentucky.  He has been director of the Provident Savings Bank, of Baltimore, and president, since 1887, of the Maryland House or Refuge/ Elected president of the Young Men’s Christian Association of his native city in 1885, he has been unanimously re-elected every year since.  He is a member of the international committee of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and Canada.
     Originally an Independent Democrat, Mr. Levering became a Prohibitionist in 1884 and voted for St. John that year.  He was president of the [Maryland] State Prohibition convention in 1887 and again in 1893, and also a delegate to the national conventions of 1888 and 1892.  He declined to allow the use of his name for the vice-presidency in 1888 and, in fact, in 1892, also; but friends insisted, and on the first ballot he received a majority of votes, but before the announcement of the result sufficient were changed to elect Dr. Cranfill.  Mr. Levering has been vice-chairman of the State executive committee for some years, always refusing to accept nomination for any office, excepting in 1891, when he ran for State controller. 

— Data from An Album of Representative Prohibitionists (1895)

[BACK]