Reuben Haines III (February 8, 1786 – October 19, 1831) was a Quaker farmer, brewer, abolitionist, scientist, ornithologist, meteorologist, firefighter, philanthropist, and educational reformer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Haines was a founder and first president of the Philadelphia Hose Company, the first organization in the United States devoted to fighting fires by pumping water through a leather hose. He was a founding member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, served as the corresponding secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 17 years (1814–1831), and made significant early contributions to the museum collection. He was the first person to import Alderney cattle (a now extinct breed closely related to Guernsey cattle) into the United States.
Haines was the proprietor of the historic Wyck House in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Biography
Family
Haines was born into a wealthy Quaker family with an extensive social network. He was the son of Caspar Wistar Haines (1762–1801) and Hannah (Marshall) Haines (1765–1828); great-grandson of Caspar Wistar (1696–1752), the glass maker; and grandson of Reuben Haines (1727–1793), the brewer and land prospector. Timothy Matlack the brewer-politician was his uncle. Haines was the heir of a family homestead in Germantown that had been passed down since 1692 on his father’s side, now known as the Wyck House. It was founded by his ancestor, Hans Milan, an early settler of Germantown, who immigrated to the Pennsylvania colony from Holland or lower Rhineland.
Haines married Jane Bowne (1792–1843) in New York on May 12, 1812. They would have nine children:
Sarah Minturn Haines (b. March 30, 1812) Margaret Haines Elizabeth Bowne Haines (1817–1891) John Smith Haines (1820–1850) Hannah Haines (1822–1882) Sarah Haines, who died in childbirth Robert Bowne (1827–1895) Margaret "Meta" Haines (1830–1878) Jane Reuben Haines (1832–1911), both after her father's death, master of Wyck until 1911.
Residences
Haines spent a portion of his childhood at the Wyck House in Germantown, which in 1971 was designated as a National Historic Landmark. To escape the yellow fever epidemic that took the life of his grandparents and devastated Philadelphia in 1793, the Haines family relocated to their ancestral property in Germantown by 1794. Haines lived at Wyck from 1794 to 1797, during which time he helped his father construct a stone barn (1795/96) on the Wyck property, and the Germantown Brewery on the lot adjacent to Wyck, which would remain in business from 1795 to the 1840s.
Haines lived at boarding school from 1797 until his father's death in 1801, after which he moved back to Germantown. Several months later, he and his mother Hannah moved to Philadelphia, where they lived together in a house on New Bank St. until Reuben married in 1812. Haines and his new bride then moved into a new townhouse at 300 Chestnut St., which became an occasional venue for the famous "Wistar Parties", which were regular gatherings of intellectuals (most associated with the American Philosophical Society) organized by his cousin, the eminent physician Dr. Caspar Wistar.
From 1814 to 1820, Haines and his young family went to Wyck for the summer seasons, and then in 1820 relocated there permanently. A diary entry by Haines dated "6 mo. 1, 1820" (June 1) reads: "waggon & 2 carts to Philada. to bring R. H. Goods. R. Haines left Philada. & moved to Germantown."
Education and early adulthood
Haines attended boarding school in Burlington, New Jersey, from January 1797 to April 1798; after which, he moved in with his uncle, Richard Hartshorne, in Philadelphia. He attended Fourth St. Friends School from December 1798 to March 1799. Haines was enrolled in the inaugural class at Westtown School, a private Quaker boarding school in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This is presumably where Haines began his friendship with Thomas Say, the zoologist and explorer, who was his classmate, and where he was introduced to a wide array of scientific topics including astronomy and natural history. Haines spent only three years at Westtown before leaving prematurely after his father's death.