John L. Haynes papers

Collection

Identifier: urn:taro:utexas.cah.01540

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Papers of Haynes include correspondence, census report, memoranda, program, certificate, clippings, telegram, licenses, poem, petition, photographs, maps, and broadside. Papers concern Haynes's legislative and political career; organization of the Seventh Legislature; efforts to obtain United States troops for defense of the Texas western frontier; Cortina Wars and the sending of a gubernatorial investigative commission.

Papers also relate to the Compromise of 1850; the Texas and New Mexico Act; and the petitioning of United States Congress for establishment of the Territory of the Rio Grande; support for Sam Houston for governor; Houston's opposition to secession; and Unionist sympathy in Texas. Also included are a Texas census of 1858 and United States census of 1860; materials relating to the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore; the 1860 presidential election; political and service materials during the Civil War; and other political newspaper clippings and materials relating to the Republican party and Constitutional Conventions.

Dates

Creation: 1846 - 1945

Creator

Haynes, John L., 1821-1888 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

There are no use restrictions on this collection. Publisher is responsible for complying with copyright law.

Biographical Note

John Leal Haynes (1821–1888) was a military and political leader, born in Bedford County, Virginia. In the early 1840s he became the editor of the Lexington, Mississippi, Advertiser. He volunteered for service in the Mexican War and rose to the rank of lieutenant. Subsequently he lived in the frontier towns of Camargo, Tamaulipas, and Rio Grande City, Texas. After service during 1850 as Starr County clerk, he was in the state House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861. Governor Sam Houston appointed him quartermaster of state troops on the frontier in 1860. During the Civil War, Haynes became an officer in Col. Edmund J. Davis's First Texas Cavalry (U.S.). He was promoted to colonel of the Second Texas Cavalry (U.S.) when it was organized in 1863 and commanded the consolidated regiment formed from both units in 1864. Between 1865 and 1868 he lived in Austin and served as internal revenue collector. He campaigned unsuccessfully for Congress in 1869 as a supporter of Andrew J. Hamilton. Haynes was collector of customs at Galveston in 1869–70 and at Brownsville from 1872 to 1884. He was active continuously in the Republican party during the Reconstruction era: he helped lead the conservative faction in the late 1860s, supported the regular party in the 1870s, and ran for lieutenant governor on the "straight-out" Republican ticket in 1884. Haynes was married and had one daughter and four sons. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Masonic order. He died in Laredo in 1888 and was buried in the Protestant cemetery in that city.

Alwyn Barr, “Haynes, John Leal,” Handbook of Texas Online.

Extent

2.6 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Correspondence, census report, memoranda, program, certificate, clippings, telegram, licenses, poem, petition, photographs, maps, and broadside of John L. Haynes, publisher, soldier, legislator, and attorney.