Prominent among the leading members of the Connecticut bar is Leonard Mayhew Daggett, of New Haven, who for thirty years has been an active representative of the bar. He was born November 23, 1863, in the city in which he makes his home, his parents being David Lewis and Margaret Donaldson (Gibbons) Daggett. The ancestry in the paternal line is traced back to John Daggett, who came to the new world with Governor John Winthrop in 1630 and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. His son, Thomas Daggett, married a daughter of Thomas Mayhew, who was governor of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth islands. David Daggett, a representative of the family in the fifth generation in America, came to New Haven from Attleboro, Massachusetts, was graduated from Yale in 1783 and at once entered upon the practice of law in New Haven. Many times he was elected to the general assembly of the state and for one term he served in the United States senate. In 1826 he was appointed Kent professor of law in Yale and for a brief period he served upon the supreme bench of Connecticut as chief justice. His son, Leonard Augustus Daggett, was graduated from Yale in 1807, and his son, David Lewis Daggett, was graduated in 1839. The last named was born in 1820 and following his graduation from the medical department of Yale entered upon active practice in New Haven, remaining for fifty-three years a member of the medical profession of this city. In 1854 he wedded Margaret Donaldson Gibbons and they became the parents of three sons: David, who was born April 3, 1858, and died July 3, 1916; William G., who was born January 8, 1860, and died September 13, 1910; and Leonard Mayhew. The father passed away in February, 1896, at the age of seventy-six years, and in his passing New Haven lost one of its distinguished and representative citizens.

Leonard M. Daggett pursued his preparatory studies in the Hopkins grammar school and in his college days he became a member of the Kappa Sigma Epsilon and the Psi Upsilon. Following his graduation he taught for a year in the Hopkins grammar school and subsequently studied in the Yale Law School, from which he was graduated with the class of 1387. After a year's clerkship in the law office of Townsend & Watrous in New Haven he entered upon the private practice of law but soon became associated with Henry C. White, under the firm style of White & Daggett. He is now a member of the firm of Bristol & White. From 1894 until 1910 he was instructor on the law of wills in the Yale Law School. In 1915 he succeeded William Waldo Hyde of Hartford as one of the board of five trustees appointed by the United States court to hold and operate the Connecticut Company, the trolley system formerly owned by the New Haven Railroad. In 1917 he was appointed a member of the district exemption board for the second district, of which he served as chairman. He is a director of the Second National Bank.

On the 17th of February, 1906, Mr. Daggett was married in New Haven to Miss Eleanor Evelyn Cutler, a daughter of the late Evarts Cutler, formerly of this city. Mr. Daggett has always given his political allegiance to the republican party and in 1890 was elected a member of the board of councilmen of New Haven. In 1894 he became judge advocate general on the staff of Governor Coffin and filled that position for two years, while in 1901 he became corporation counsel of New Haven, a position which he admirably filled until 1908.