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.
Early life and education
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. 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.” 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. In this essay, Haynes advocated for the emancipation of enslaved peoples in America, condemning slavery as a sin and highlighting the irony of slaveowners pursuing liberty from Britain while depriving it to so many on American soil. "Liberty Further Extended" was never published during Haynes's lifetime; it was discovered only in 1983, more than two centuries after he wrote it, by Ruth Bogin in a Harvard University archive.
Haynes quotes the Declaration of Independence heavily in “Liberty Further Extended,” underscoring the former’s emphasis on equality and liberty as unalienable rights and pointing out its irreconcilability with the institution of slavery. He remained an ardent defender of Calvinistic orthodoxy, opposing the emerging ideologies of Arminianism and universalism. He took a temporary post in Manchester, Vermont. His final pastorate was in South Granville, New York where he was minister of the South Granville Congregational Church from 1822 to 1833.
Haynes died in South Granville, New York, in September 1833, at the age of eighty. He was buried at Lee-Oatman Cemetery in South Granville. He had composed his own epitaph, which was included on his gravestone as he had requested.
Family
While living in Middle Granville in the early 1780s, Haynes met and married Elizabeth Babbitt (1763–1836), a white schoolteacher. Babbit was ten years younger than Haynes and had recently come to teach at the village school. She regularly listened to Haynes preach and, "looking to Heaven for guidance, she was led ... to make him the overture of her heart and hand as his companion for life." Although Haynes was "highly honored" by Babbit's proposal, he hesitated to accept, doing so only after consulting a number of ministers and receiving their approval. Their marriage was ultimately performed in Hartland, Connecticut, in 1783 by the Reverend Samuel Woodbridge.
Legacy
Haynes was the first black abolitionist to reject slavery on purely theological grounds. His outspoken religious rhetoric surrounding 'slavery as a sin' was published in newspapers around the thirteen colonies. He was one of the first African American individuals to be published. Haynes's use of republican ideology and New Divinity theology in defense of liberty established Haynes as a founding father of Black Theology.
Middlebury College granted Haynes an honorary master of arts in 1804, the first honorary degree ever bestowed upon an African American.
Historian John Saillant (2003, p. 3) writes that Haynes's "faith and social views are better documented than those of any African American born before the luminaries of the mid-nineteenth century."
In February 2023, the West Hartford African American Social & Cultural Organization and the First Church of West Hartford unveiled the Lemuel Haynes Memorial –– one of the few physical tributes to him in his birthplace. The Lemuel Haynes House, Hayne's home in South Granville, New York when he was pastor of the South Granville Congregational Church, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975. In 2009, it was purchased from Charles Halderman by Bo Young and William Foote, formerly of Brooklyn.