Lesson 199:
Lemuel Haynes
An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 08/24/2025
To finish out this particular run of Revolutionary War-era Black Americans You Didn't Learn About, we take a peek at the life of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes --that title "Reverend" being particularly significant as Haynes is very widely regarded to be the first Black American ordained by a mainstream Protestant Church in the United States. Born to mixed parentage in 1753 Connecticut, he was bound as an indentured servant (certainly not outright enslavement but still pretty unpleasant) to one David Rose of Granville, Massachusetts. While never formally educated, Haynes essentially taught himself to read and write (mostly from the Bible and other theology books); in his own words, "my own Application to Letters," and he also showed an early aptitude for oration; over time he would be entrusted to conduct services at the town parish, eventually proofreading sermons and ultimately composing sermons of his own. His indenture ended in 1774 --just in time for active rebellion against the crown, and he enlisted as a "Minuteman." While his particular unit did not see action on April 19, 1775, he nevertheless did compose a lengthy ballad to the events of that day. Later he was rotated to Ethan Allen's famed Green Mountain Boys --one of only three Black men to be so assigned.
After the Revolution, Haynes started into his theology studies in earnest; along the way mastering Greek and Latin under the tutelage of various ministers across Connecticut. In 1780 he became officially licensed to preach as a minister of the New Divinity, and took a position as a minister in his hometown at the Congregational Church of Middle Granville --making him the first Black minister of an all-white congregation. In 1785 he became America's first ordained Black minister and served very briefly at a church in Torrington, Vermont; though this town objected to a Black man as a minister, such was Haynes's verbal talent that "curiosity conquered prejudice." Nevertheless shortly afterwards he married and moved to Rutland, Vermont where he would serve as minister of the West Parish Congregation for the next 30 thirty years; in that time he and his wife Elizabeth raised ten children. During those years he developed a solid reputation as a straight talker but also as a fierce advocate for justice (undoubtedly spurred on by memories of his indenture); his sermons stressed Natural Rights but also condemned slavery, and advocated for greater interracial harmony and cooperation. A number of his sermons were even published internationally; marking another quiet-but-significant milestone for a Black American. During his time in Rutland he was named Field Secretary of the Vermont Missionary Society, and in 1804 received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Middlebury College (you guessed it, another first for a Black American).
Unfortunately Haynes's views on the War of 1812 (he vehemently opposed it) put him at odds with his congregation and in 1818 he was ultimately dismissed from his parish, though there are also anecdotal Rutland Council documents that suggest the dismissal may have also been racially motivated. Undeterred, he took a position as minister at the Congregational church in Manchester, Vermont, and then in his final years served at the Congregational Church of South Granville, New York. Rev. Haynes died in 1833 at the age of 80; his obituary named him as "one of colonial New England's finest minds."
Next lesson - Lesson 200: Anna Murray Douglass
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