Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes (July 18, 1753 – September 28, 1833) was an American clergyman. A veteran of the American Revolution, Haynes was the first black man in the United States to be ordained as a minister.

Haynes was a native of West Hartford, Connecticut, and was the son of an African American man and a white woman. He spent much of his childhood as an indentured servant in the house of a Granville, Massachusetts, farmer. A regular churchgoer, he began to preach as a boy. He served in the militia during the American Revolution, including garrison duty at the recently captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1776. Haynes also became an anti-slavery activist. In addition to arguing against involuntary servitude and preaching against the slave trade, Haynes also advocated against the colonization movement, arguing that people of African descent living in the United States should be entitled to the same rights as other citizens, and that having them resettle in Africa would not be beneficial.

Ordained in the Congregational church in 1785, Haynes pastored a church in Torrington, Connecticut, for three years. In 1788, Haynes accepted a call to pastor the West Parish Church of Rutland, Vermont (now West Rutland's United Church of Christ), where he remained for the next 30 years. He then moved to a temporary pastorate at Manchester, Vermont, and finally to South Granville, New York, where he was pastor of South Granville Congregational Church.

Haynes died in South Granville in 1833 and was buried at Lee-Oatman Cemetery.

Haynes was born on July 18, 1753, in West Hartford, Connecticut, reportedly to a Caucasian mother of some status and an unknown man who was African or African-American. The identity of Haynes's mother has long been the subject of debate among historians and theologians. The most prevalent theory is that she was a servant named Lucy or Alice Fitch who worked for the John Haynes family of West Hartford. Another theory suggests that Fitch was a stand-in, willing or unwilling, for his real mother. According to this theory, Haynes's mother was a member of the prominent Goodwin family of Hartford who tried to avoid the scandal associated with giving birth while unmarried by staying with the Haynes family. Both theories suggest that Lucy (or Alice) Fitch was fired by the Haynes family after she attested to or was accused of being the mother. She named her son Haynes, either to give him respectability or to take revenge against the Hayneses for firing her.

At the age of five months, Lemuel Haynes was given over to indentured servitude to Deacon David Rose, a blind farmer of Granville, Massachusetts. Part of the indenture required Rose to see to Haynes's education, and by accompanying Rose to church, he became exposed to Calvinistic religious doctrine, including the works of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Philip Doddridge, who all became strong influences on Haynes' religious outlook. According to Haynes, while he fulfilled his indenture obligations to David Rose, Rose's wife Elizabeth (Fowler) (d. 1775) was especially devoted to his upbringing, to the point of treating him as though he was her own child. In fact, Haynes recalled at one point that Mrs. Rose “had peculiar attachment to me: she treated me as though I was her own child, I remember it was a saying among the neighbors that she loved Lemuel more than her own children.” His indenture ended when he was twenty-one.

In 1774, as one of his first acts as a free man, Haynes joined the minutemen of Granville. In 1775, he marched with his militia company to Roxbury, Massachusetts, following the news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In 1776, he accompanied them in the garrisoning of the recently captured Fort Ticonderoga. He remained on garrison duty until contracting Typhus, which caused him to return home. He returned to the Rose homestead, even though his indenture had by this point expired.

Although his service in the Continental Army was brief, Haynes absorbed a deep understanding of both New Divinity theology and republican ideology. This knowledge would subsequently influence his writings on pro-black and antislavery issues. Even after the Revolutionary War technically came to an end, Haynes asserted that the Revolution could not truly be considered over as long as slavery still existed.