Lemuel Haynes was born July 18, 1753, at West Hartford, Conn. He was a man of color, his father being of "unmingled African extraction, and his mother a white woman of respectable ancestry in New England." She was then a hired girl in the employ of a farmer who had a neighbor to whom belonged the Negro to whom the woman became attached. Haynes took neither the name of his father nor of his mother, but probably that of the man in whose home he was born. It is said that his mother, in a fit of displeasure with her host for some supposed neglect, called her child by the farmer's name. Mr. Haynes took the young mother to task, and while yet the baby was but a few days old, she disappeared. As she was the daughter of a Tolland County farmer, Mr. Haynes shielded the family from disgrace by having the child take his name with that of Lemuel which in Hebrew signifies "consecrated to God." The mother never had anything to do with her child, and it is said she married a white man, and lived a respectable life. Lemuel providentially met his mother once in an adjoining town, at the house of a relative, fondly expecting that he would receive some kind attentions from her. He was sadly disappointed, however, for she eluded the interview. Catching a glimpse of her at length when she was attempting to escape from him he accosted her in the language of severe but merited rebuke. Mr. Haynes kept Lemuel till he was five months old, and then had him "bound out" to Deacon David Rose, of Granville, Massachusetts, a man of singular piety. There Lemuel grew up, and lived for thirty-two years. One condition of his indenture was that, in common with other children, he should enjoy the usual advantage of a district school education. Yet, as schools of that section were decidedly backward, his early opportunities for instruction were very limited. Like other farmer boys, however, he was instructed in the fundamentals of education and the principles of religion. His duties often kept him from school, or caused him to arrive at a late hour. Yet he said, "As I had the advantage of attending a common school equal with other children, I was early taught to read, to which I was greatly attached and could vie with almost any of my age."[1] He soon formed the habit of studying the Bible and early made a profession of faith in the Christian religion. While young he was baptized by the Reverend Jonathan Huntington.