10 STORIES OF CHILDREN OF WINGATE AND MARY HAINES WITHOUT PROGENY

Of the 17 children born to Joseph Wingate and Mary Briggs Haines, eight did not produce children or children that survived very long. Information about these children follows.

HENRY HAINES

Mary’s third child, Henry, was born in Hallowell, Maine, on June 29, 1831, and died three months later on September 29. 1831.

JOSEPH WINGATE HAINES

The child who would have been “junior” was born on November 5, 1834, and died after two months, on January 11, 1835.

MARY ELIZABETH HAINES

Mary was born on January 29, 1836, in Hallowell and died in Easton, Maine, at age 27 on September 25, 1863. Mary married Augustus Rackliff (1829-1904), a farmer from Easton. Three children were born to them: Everard, George and Frederick. Mary and her three sons died within a few weeks of each other in 1863. Likely, their deaths were due to a contagious disease. Their remains are buried in Haines Maple Grove Cemetery.

DANIEL HAINES

Daniel Haines was born on July 21, 1838, in Hallowell, Maine, and when he old enough worked on his father’s farm in Fort Fairfield. When the Civil War began in 1861, at the age of 23, he chose to answer the call for soldiers, even though serving in combat was contrary to the tenants of his parents’ faith. He was enlisted at Houlton on October 8, 1861 to serve for three years. At 5 foot, eleven inches in height, he was much taller than the average soldier of his era. He was assigned to Company E, Maine 1 st Cavalry Regiment. This regiment had “high standards” for its recruits and the quality of its mounts. The regiment was raised from all counties of Maine and recruiters were to look for “able-bodied men in all respects… of correct morals and temperate habits, active, intelligent, vigorous, and hardy.” They trained in the Augusta area. Very few of them were experienced horsemen and horses were not readily available for early training, either. Before his initial three-year enlistment period ended, he re-enlisted on December 29, 1963, and mustered out on August 1, 1865, with the rank of Commissary Sergeant. The First Maine Cavalry Regiment fought in the Virginia area including the Shenandoah Valley and was also present at the several large battles such as the Second Battle of Bull Run and Battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. It was also present at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Daniel’s brother Albert also served in the 1 st Maine Cavalry and had been captured by enemy forces. See more details about the 1 st Maine Cavalry in Albert Haines’ story.

Upon his release from prison, Albert reunited with his regiment and Daniel on May 10, 1864. Albert found Daniel in very poor health. He suffered from chills, fever, and severe diarrhea. Daniel continued to serve, though, and he was assigned to light duty as Commissary Sergeant. In August, the regiment fought in the greater Petersburgh, Virginia, area. On August 25, 1864, Daniel was seriously wounded in his right shoulder by a shell blast at Reams Station, Virginia, where the Union Army was destroying railroad tracks that were critical for supplying Richmond, the Confederates’ capital. He was sent to a hospital in City Point, Virginia. As the war ended, Daniel was unable to travel home with his regiment due to his poor medical condition.

When he eventually arrived in Fort Fairfield, he lived at the home of his parents, Wingate and Mary. He was nursed constantly. During this period, he was very short of breath and could not endure any exercise. He also had pain in the region of his heart and a painful, severely swollen leg. He died in Fort Fairfield on August 15, 1870, at age 32. His remains were buried in Haines Maple Grove Cemetery.

Daniel’s story contains a special chapter near the end of his life. Despite his extremely poor health, only two months before he died, he married Flora Hinckley (1845-1925) on June 14, 1870 in Hampden, Maine. It is hard to imagine his willingness to travel over 165 miles by horse-pulled conveyance over rough, unpaved roads for such a ceremony, and then return to Fort Fairfield. So how did Daniel and Flora meet?

Oral history passed down in the family reveals that Daniel and Albert’s 1 st Maine Cavalry experience in 1861 caused them to spend some time in Bangor where they met sisters

Flora and Ella Hinckley. A few years later, brother Fred also met Flora and Ella in Bangor as he was heading off to serve in the 17 th Maine Infantry. After the war, Fred married Ella. Flora visited them in Fort Fairfield on occasion and she became reacquainted with Daniel. They married and she provided nursing care to Daniel in his final days. After his death, widow Flora filed a claim to receive the pension that Daniel was entitled to as a veteran of the Civil War. It took her 17 years of effort before her claim was granted. Flora never remarried. She returned to the Bangor area where she did various things. She worked as a cashier for a while. She made pottery and authored a book, Keramic (sic, former spelling of ceramic) Study: A Chapter in the History of a Half-Dozen Plates. The book was about plates that she had made. She travelled abroad a few times and eventually moved to Stoneham, Massachusetts where she passed away.

LUCIA B. HAINES

Lucia was born in Hallowell, Maine, on October 25, 1841, and passed away thirteen days later.

MARCELLA HAINES

There is some uncertainty where Marcella was born. Conventional thinking was that she was born in Hallowell, Maine on September 26, 1846, and moved with her family to northern Maine in 1847. Caleb Holt Ellis, however, wrote a letter to the editor of the Fort Fairfield Review which was published on July 21, 1909, and stated that Marcella was born in Hodgdon, Maine. She died in Letter D Range 1 on September 7, 1857, and her remains are buried in Haines Maple Grove Cemetery.

THEODORE D. HAINES

Mary Briggs Haines had given birth to 15 children before she arrived in Letter D Plantation. On January 27, 1848, in her new home there, she gave birth to twins, Theodore and Isadore. Theodore was not satisfied with farm life and left home, first going to Michigan and in 1869 to Pennsylvania where he worked for over a year in the oil field in Titusville. At approximately this time, his siblings Henry, Isadore and Nancy were also in the Titusville area. Sadly, Theodore died of typhoid fever on August 31, 1870, at age 22.

ISADORE D. HAINES

Theodore’s twin sister, Isadore (1848-1921), lived a full and adventuresome life. She grew up on her parents’ farm in Fort Fairfield but soon after reaching maturity she was drawn in various directions and pursuits. In the late 1860s and up to at least 1870, she followed her sister Nancy and brothers Henry and Theodore to western Pennsylvania where drilling for oil was the dominant activity. There, she worked as a typesetter, possibly for her brother-in-law, Warren Plumber, a printer. She returned to Fort Fairfield and lived with her brother Albert for several years and was a schoolteacher. The Town Report of 1872 listed Isadore as teaching the summer term in District 7 and being “one of the most thoroughly qualified teachers.” In the 1880s and 1890s she served as a missionary in the islands of the West Indies, and did some work in South America. She also returned to Fort Fairfield periodically and preached at local revival meetings and at different churches. She preached at other locations, too, such as in the Winthrop area in 1895.

About 1896, Isadore attended a tent revival meeting and heard Reverend Frank W. Sandford (1862-1948) speak. She was impressed with his religious message and chose to join his commune in Durham, Maine, called “Shiloh” which was then under construction. She arrived there on October 2, 1896, and was among the first seventy members of Sanford’s movement and became a respected elder in the community. Eventually, over 500 families joined this faith community. In 1900, Isadore lived in Skowhegan and likely devoted her time to preaching the “good news” to local residents there. She visited her brother Frank in her later years in Fort Fairfield, too, but Shiloh was her regular residence for twenty years.

Isadore was not afraid to relocate from time to time to achieve what she felt was important in life. The youngest daughter of Wingate and Mary Haines, she also followed their example of having strong religious faith. She died on March 31, 1921, in Lisbon Falls, Maine, and her remains are buried at the Shiloh cemetery.

Learn more about the fascinating story of Shiloh here.