John Haynes was a colonial magistrate and one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. He served one term as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the first governor of Connecticut, ultimately serving eight separate terms. He was influential in the drafting of laws and legal frameworks in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. John Haynes was on the committee that drafted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
Background
John Haynes was born on May 1, 1594 in Essex, United Kingdom. He was the eldest son of John Haynes and Mary Michel Haynes. 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.
Education
It is possible that John Haynes attended Cambridge; during the relevant time period, two John Hayneses are listed as attending.
Career
In the early 1620s, John Haynes purchased Copford Hall, near Colchester in Essex; this estate alone was reported to produce £1,100 per year. Essex was also a Puritan center, and Haynes was greatly influenced by the pastor Thomas Hooker, who was a close friend. In about 1630, John Winthrop and John Humphreys, two of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, extended invitations to Hooker and John Haynes to join them in the New World. Apparently leaving his minor children behind, Haynes emigrated in 1633, sailing aboard the Griffin with Hooker. They settled first at Newtowne (later renamed Cambridge), where Haynes was the guest of Thomas Dudley until his own house was ready.
In 1634, John Haynes was admitted as a freeman and elected to the colony's council of assistants. He was also named to a committee overseeing military matters, a position that assumed some importance when war broke out with the Pequot tribe that year. In 1634, John Haynes served in a variety of municipal capacities. He was a Cambridge selectman and served on a commission that decided the boundary between Boston and Charlestown. He was elected governor in 1635, winning an election that Roger Ludlow had been expected to win. Haynes' one-year term as governor was marked by political conflict between a faction led by Haynes, Hooker, and Dudley, and another led by Winthrop. The major disagreement between them concerned the strictness of judicial procedures and the process of rendering judgments; it also passed legislation banning the smoking of tobacco and restricting overly ostentatious or fashionable clothing.
Contrary to the engraved date on his tombstone in Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground, John Haynes did not die on March 1, 1653/4. A letter, written by John Winthrop, Jr. on January 9, 1653/4, mentions his recent death. The Connecticut General Court issued a statement on March 6, calling for a "day of humiliation" following the "sudden death of our late Governor". Haynes' son, Hezekiah, a military officer who served in the English Civil War, noted that his father had invested between £7,000 and £8,000 in the colony "to the ruine of his famylye in Englande"; his estate was valued at about £1,500. John Haynes was a significant landowner in the Hartford area, and he and Edward Hopkins operated a mill in the town.
Connections
By about 1616, John Haynes was living at Gurney's Manor, Hingham, Norfolk, a hotbed of Puritan sentiment, where he was Lord of the Manor. There he married Mary Thorneton, the daughter of Norfolk nobility, with whom he had six children. In 1627, his wife Mary died and was buried at St Andrew's Church in Hingham.