John Haynes was born on May 1, 1594 in Messing, Essex, England. He was the eldest son of John Haynes and Mary Michell. The family was an armigerous gentry or "visitation family" who had lived at Codicote, Herefordshire, and at Great Haddam. In 1605, when he was eleven, his father died, and he eventually inherited the family's many properties.
It is possible that Haynes attended Cambridge; during the relevant time period, two John Hayneses were listed as attending.
Haynes was the owner of the manor of Copford Hall, Essex, in 1624. He emigrated to America in 1633, sailing in July in the Griffin, the vessel that carried John Cotton and Thomas Hooker to the New World, and arriving in Massachusetts Bay on September 4. He took up his residence at Newtown (Cambridge), was admitted a freeman of Massachusetts Bay on May 14, 1634, and was immediately made an assistant of the colony.
He was chosen to oversee the construction of an ammunition house at Newtown in the following September and was appointed townsman for Newtown in February 1634.
On May 6, 1635, he was chosen governor of Massachusetts Bay and agreed to serve without salary "partly in respect of their love showed towards him, and partly for that he observed how much the people had been pressed lately with public charges, which the poorer sort did much groan under. " It was during this period that he accused Winthrop of administering justice too leniently, and he himself pronounced sentence of banishment upon Roger Williams, later expressing regret for his action.
Upon the expiration of his term as governor, Haynes was again chosen assistant. He was appointed colonel of a Massachusetts regiment in December 1636.
Haynes removed to Connecticut in May 1637 and settled at Hartford. Upon the outbreak of the Pequot War, the General Court at Hartford sent Haynes and Roger Ludlow "to the mouth of the River to treate & Conclude with our frendes of the Bay either to joine with their forces in prosecutinge our designe against our enemies or if they see cause by aduise to interprise any Accon accordinge to the force we haue. "
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were adopted on January 14, 1638, and Haynes was chosen the first governor of the colony under those orders on April 11, 1639.
Under the early laws of Connecticut the governor could not be reelected for a consecutive term but Haynes was chosen governor of Connecticut every alternate year, and usually served as deputy governor in the intervening years, until his death. He was appointed a member of a committee to secure an enlargement of the liberties of the Warwick patent for Connecticut in 1645.
From 1637 to 1643 he worked to establish a union of the New England colonies and after the formation of the New England Confederation in 1643, he represented Connecticut at meetings of the commissioners of the united colonies in 1646 and 1650.
He died in Hartford in January 1653.
John Haynes is remembered as a prominent governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the first governor of Connecticut. He was the first governor to serve multiple terms. Haynes was influential in the drafting of laws and legal frameworks in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was on the committee that drafted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which has been called one of the first written constitutions. He also invested most of his fortune in Connecticut, "to the ruine of his famylye in Englande. "
Haynes opposed the killing of Pequot women and children. In 1638 he was one of the signers of a treaty made between Connecticut and the Narragansetts and Mohicans.
During his early life Haynes was described as a "gentleman of great estate. "
Haynes' first wife was Mary, the daughter of Robert Thornton of Nottingham, by whom he had two sons, Robert and Hezekiah, and a daughter, Mary. His second wife was Mabel, the sister of Roger Harlakenden of Newtown, by whom he had three sons, John, Roger, and Joseph, and two daughters, Ruth and Mabel.
After his death his English property passed to the sons of his first wife; his Newtown property had been sold before his death to Mrs. Glover; his Connecticut property passed to his second wife and to her sons.
