Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes (1753 – 1833) was an influential African-American religious leader who argued against slavery.

Little is known of his early life. He was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, to a reportedly Caucasian mother of some status and a man named Haynes, who was said to be "of some form of African extraction". According to the African American National Biography, his birth date is July 18, 1753 and he died September 28, 1833.

At the age of five months, Lemuel Haynes was given over to indentured servitude in Granville, Massachusetts to puritan Deacon David Rose,. Although serving as an agricultural worker, part of the agreement required educating him. Through accompanying his masters to church, he became exposed to Calvinistic thought, including the works of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Philip Doddridge, who would be strong influences to Haynes. At about twenty years of age, he saw the Aurora Borealis, and, fearing the approach of the Day of Judgment as a result, he soon accepted Christianity.

Freed in 1774 when his indenture expired, 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, until contracting Typhus and had to return home. After returning home, he tended to his previous labors in Granville after the northern campaign of the American War of Independence. Lemuel joined the Granville minutemen and fought with the patriot forces in 1776, when he caught typhus and had to return home.

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