Sanford Haines

Pioneer Preachers

Scarcely had the pioneers of Polk County begun to turn over the sod of the wild, unbroken prairie, when the pioneer preacher began work in the new field.  In the rude log cabins and huts of the pioneers, they proclaimed the same gospel that is preached in the gorgeous temples of to-day, but somehow it seemed to have gained a firmer discipline, and wielded a wider influence amid the simple life of the pioneer than in these latter days, amid the surroundings of wealth and fashion.

Going from place to place, hunting up Christians scattered in the wilderness, getting together a few of the faithful - often only the father and mother - in the cabin, or perchance in the shade of some wide-spreading tree, the Word would be expounded, a song of Zion sung, a prayer uttered, words of cheer, hope and consolation spoke.  Thus they went about, founding societies, toning up moral sentiment, directing public thought, and made the advancing line on Christian civilization as it pressed upon savage life and the wilderness.

Of such a type was Sanford Haines, born in Champaign County, Ohio, December Sixteenth, 1816, of Scotch-Irish descent.  His father was a farmer, and on a farm he remained until 1841.

During his boyhood days, he acquired such an education as was possible in the common schools of that time and place, which he supplemented with untiring effort at self-education during early manhood.  At the age of fifteen, it was necessary for him to leave his home and fight the battle of life on his own account, and he lived mostly among strangers, his associations not being very favorable to good morals, but the early training of his Christian parents was a good guidon for him.  In 1840, he attended a prayer-meeting in Union, Ohio, was converted and united with the Methodist Church.  He was very methodical, and kept a diary in which he recorded every day its events, showing the place, time and Bible text of every sermon preached.  Of his conversion, he wrote, in 1855:

"I made it a point to do my duty from the hour of my conversion.  I bless the name of the Lord, that He has given me the grace to help in every time of need."

Immediately after his conversion, he attended school three months, to study Arithmetic, English Grammar, and Natural Philosophy.

The Church, in recognition of his zeal and consistent life, in 1841, gave him license to exhort in schoolhouses in the vicinity of his home.  September Third, he was admitted to the Conference and licensed to preach.  For three years, he preached in schoolhouses on the Sabbath, and worked on the farm during the week, devoting every spare moment to study and mental improvement.  His license to preach was a surprise to him, as married men were not then generally admitted to preach under the itinerant system, the wife being deemed an obstruction.

At the Ohio Conference, in 1848, he was elected to Deacon's Orders, and ordained to that office.  In 1850, his health and that of his wife being impaired, and their parents having settled in Henry County, Iowa, he decided to come West.  In the Spring of 1850, he shipped his household goods from Zanesville to Keokuk, and, with his wife and children, drove overland, crossing the Mississippi at Burlington, June Twenty-sixth.  On the Twenty-seventh, he reached his father's family in Henry County, where he passed several weeks with relatives and driving over the country with his wife.  In his diary, he wrote:

"We saw much at which to wonder, and much to admire.  The prairie scenery at this season of the year is beautiful and lovely beyond description.  The rolling prairies, the groves of timber, the rich soil, and the running brooks threw around us a charm such as Nature alone can do.  We were spellbound."

In August, the Iowa Conference met at Fairfield, at which he was ordained as Elder.  He wrote in his diary:

"I was very forcibly struck with the appearance of the Conference, both as to number and age of the ministers.  They were truly a band of boys, and only about fifty in number, while the Ohio Conference had about three hundred, and many of them fathers in Israel."

He was assigned to the Maquoketa Circuit, and met there a cold reception, the people having got the impression that he lacked force in Ohio, and was therefore sent "Out West."  But during the year, he so ingratiated himself into the hearts of the people, at the next Conference they unanimously petitioned for his retention another year, which was supplemented with his personal request, because of the rapidly failing health of his wife, who desired to be near her relatives.  Great was his surprise and disappointment when the appointments were read in the Conference that he was assigned to Fort Des Moines, a distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles.  His strong, sympathetic temperament and a little of the Old Adam was aroused thereat, for he wrote in his diary:

"I confess I thought it was an outrage upon the rights, claims and feelings of humanity.  My friends in Maquoketa were afflicted and grieved."

He, however, decided to take the assignment, and ten days later, his diary says:

"We started, Mrs. Haines scarcely able to sit up in the carriage.  We traveled as best we could.  About three o'clock on Saturday, we reached a prairie twelve miles wide which we had to cross, but night overtook us, we got lost, and were compelled to remain in that open field all night, without anything for ourselves or horse to eat, my wife sick, with paroxysms of coughing that are indescribable.  The carriage was so constructed, she could not lie down.  The next morning, we reached Mr. Rice's, her uncle, safely."

There he halted to consider the situation with friends.  His wife in the last stages of Consumption, with two children to be supported, fifty dollars expenses for moving, going to a new, sparsely settled country; he declared it would not be done.  It was a case, he recorded, "of a kind which did not occur in the history of Methodism."  His wife, however, advised him to go and see the people and tell them plainly the circumstances, which he did.  The good people at The Fort gave him a hearty welcome, and he decided to remain.  In his diary, he wrote:

"To my utter astonishment, they met the claim for the first quarter.  They told me I might remain with my family all the time necessary, and preach for them whenever I could consistently, and they would be perfectly satisfied.  Nine weeks previous to my wife's death, I was with her night and day.  The year was one of the most prosperous of my ministry.  I received all my claim, and a number of presents beside."

During that year, he went to Saylor Grove, gathered together a few of his faith, and organized a Class in one of the log cabins.  In 1852, he was again assigned to Des Moines.  At that session of the Conference, there was a vigorous tussle with secret societies, the Council being determined that no member of a secret society should fill the office of Presiding Elder, which stirred up a hornet's nest, but Bishop Ames appointed two, which pleased Elder Haines, who was an Odd Fellow.

In 1853, he was assigned to Keosauqua. His diary says:

"Had to move one hundred and fifty miles, foundered one horse on the way, had to leave it, and it died soon after.  She was an excellent animal, worth one hundred and fifty dollars."

Of his new charge, he wrote:

"The place is cursed with infidelity, politics and whiskey.  Abner Kneeland's influence hangs over it like an incubus on the people."

In 1854, he was sent to Keokuk, where he remained three years, and did good work, bringing peace and harmony in a charge he found in disordered and factional strife.

In 1858, he was sent to Fairfield, where he gave such satisfaction, an unanimous petition was sent to the Conference for his return there, and he also received his full salary of five hundred dollars for the year, but he was again sent to Des Moines, and his salary increased to seven hundred dollars.  During the year, the National Conference divided the state, and he fell into the Western Iowa Conference, which, at its first session, in August, 1860, assigned him to the Des Moines District, with eleven charges, in which he passed the remainder of his days.

I do not think any person throughout Central Iowa was more generally known than Elder Haines, and wherever he went, he won the highest esteem, for he possessed that temperament which made and held friends.  As a minister, his dominant trait was earnestness and sincerity.  His sermons were logical, forceful, and often pathetic.  As a pastor, he was untiring in watchfulness for the welfare of his charge.  Nature so endowed him with tenderness of heart and sympathy, his visitations to the sick room and sorrowing were blessings treasured long after.  As a man, he was an ideal citizen.  Righteousness, right-living, and no compromise with wrong-doing was his rule of action.  I recall a prayer he made in the old Methodist Church, on Fifth Street, during the excitement which prevailed throughout the country respecting the impeachment proceeding against President Andrew Johnson.  Johnson had been sustained.  He said: "Oh, Lord; bless and preserve our Nation, bless our rulers, keep them sober; but if they must get drunk, don't let them all get drunk at the same time."

The Elder was vivacious and social.  At social functions of young or old, he was usually the mirth-provoker.  In 1850, while he was on the Maquoketa Circuit, he joined the Odd Fellows, which, says his diary:  "Highly offended two or three old fogies.  I paid no attention to them - just let them flounce and flounder as they pleased.  They were not able to effect anything."  In later years, he let his membership lapse.

He was an enthusiastic lover of the beautiful in nature and art.  He found much pleasure in a fine painting, a landscape, the babbling brook, the majestic river, the warbling of birds, and the flowers of the field.  He exemplified that temperament in his homestead and its surroundings, with blooming shrubbery, trees and vines, just south of the Windsor place on Grand Avenue, where he deceased in 1871.