Haynes Family Cemetery, St. Catharines, ON, Canada
Adam Haines (Haynes) UEL and Elizabeth Froelick
(5th Great Grandparents)
(5th Great Grandparents)
Text from Heritage Plaque:
Haynes Cemetery (ca. 1788-1861)
This family cemetery was once part of the 1784 Crown land grant to the United Empire Loyalist Adam Haines (1747-1814). In 1777 Adam enlisted in the Loyalist cause in Albany County, New York under Col. James Huston. At the end of the American Revolution, Adam crossed over the Niagara River and in August 1784 drew a location ticket for Lots 21 and 22 in Concession VII of Township #3 (later Grantham Township). After building a shack to temporarily shelter his family, Adam returned to New York. In July 1785 he led his wife, Elizabeth, and their seven children across the Niagara River at the Lower Landing (from Lewiston to Queenston).
In 1786 in the family house, 250 metres west of this site, Peter Haynes was the first pioneer child to be born in Grantham Township. The Homestead was the last stop that Thayandagea (Joseph Brant), a Mohawk Indian Chief, would make before crossing the Twelve Mile Creek with delegates from the Six Nations Reserve on thier way to Newark (Niagara on the Lake) to claim their annual treaty money.
In 1796 Adam Haines and his brother-in-law Benjamin Frolick were listed amongst the original 44 contributors to the building of the first local church, the Church of St. Catharines, which was erected a kilometre east of here.
The homestead descended in the family for four generations. Laura Nixon Haynes, who published five books of poetry, commissioned this 40 tonne pioneer monument west of the cemetery in 1948 after the death of her husband, the former Reeve of Grantham, Fred Haynes. Having no children, in 1952 Laura sold the homestead to Thompson Products. The land was subsequently obtained by the City of St. Catharines.
Erected by the St. Catharines Heritage Committee with the assistance of the Haynes family.
©2010 Kindred Footprints
I commend you on the excellent research work and information behind this.
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting Sanjay. I wish I could take credit for this but I'm just *transcribing* what is written on the historical plaque.
ReplyDeleteHi Sharon,
ReplyDeleteHere's the biography I contributed for Laura Nixon Haynes to the Open Library at openlibrary.org:
Laura Eleanor Nixon was born and raised Baltimore, Hamilton Twp, Northumberland Co., Ontario. While attending Cobourg Collegiate, she had her first book of poems, When You and I Remember, published in 1900.
She received her teaching credentials from the Ottawa Normal School, the odd term once used to identify teachers colleges in Ontario. He career brought her to the Niagara Peninsula, where she taught in taught in the communities of Pelham, Stamford, and Grantham Townships. She also was a school trustee for 4 years. While teaching, many of her poems were patriotic verses for her students pupils to recite. Her poems were also published in the following periodicals: Canadian Countryman; Farm and Dairy; Farmer's Advocate; and The Mail and Empire. For four years she was a school trustee.
On October 12, 1916 she married Frederick Charles Haynes (Aug. 24, 1876 -Jan. 12, 1948) at St. George's [Anglican] Church, St. Catharines, Ontario. Despite Frederick's being thoroughly involved local politics, they continued to find time to farm the original family homestead granted by the Crown in 1784 to Frederick's great-grandfather, Adam Haines. Not surprisingly, an abiding sense of place and local colour figure strongly in Laura's the four books of poetry that were published after her marriage: Pioneers (1938), Lanterns in the Dusk (1944), Coming My Way (1948) and An Hour of Leisure (1955). Her style ranges from traditional forms to modernist free verse. In 1938 several of her pieces appeared in Creighton and Ridley's New Canadian Anthology
Many of her poems are also characterized by her religious faith and patriotism, the latter was also evident in her desire to leave a presence in her adopted hometown: After Frederick died in 1948, Laura, used money from the estate to commission a 30 ton concrete cenotaph and memorial, which stands on the property to this day, to "... honour all of those pioneers who courage and labour made this into our pleasant heritage."
Not having had any children of her own, Laura moved to Oshawa in 1963 to be closer to her remaining family. It is there that she died 8 years later.
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PRIMARY SOURCES:
1) Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913
2) The 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 Censuses of Canada
3) Wedding notice, St. Catharines Standard, October 12, 1916, p. 4
4) Charles Clay in his introduction to Laura's Coming My Way, p. vi (Tower Books: Ottawa, 1948).
5) Who Was Who Among North American Authors 1921-1939
6) In "The Methodist Burying Ground" (aka "Maple Lawn". ) Louth United Church, 3rd Avenue Louth Twp, St. Catharines, Lincoln Co