Henry A. Haigh 1 -- The Beginning of His Diaries

The Haigh Diaries, Part I (1871)

Dearbornites know the name Haigh -- there's a Haigh School and Haigh Street.  Most of us interested in Dearborn’s history have read an occasional excerpt from the Haigh diaries.  A man who appreciated the written word, Henry A. Haigh provided information and insights in the diaries that he kept for 71 of his 88 years of life.  These diaries covered the years 1871 to 1942 and not only reflect his own life in Dearborn and Detroit, but much about life in Michigan and in the United States, as well. The Diaries are part of the Dearborn Historical Museum's collection of documents.  They were written with a bold hand by a man of whom I have become quite fond -- even if he died before I was born.  As you will see, his words still speak today.

Having grown up in Dearborn, I fondly remember the stately tree-lined lane off Michigan Avenue that  led to the Haigh Mansion. The lovely house had burned down in 1901 and was rebuilt, then razed forever in the 1950’s to make room for a Holiday Inn and the Dearborn Towers.

Born on March 13, 1854, Henry Allyn Haigh grew up on this farm (it had previously belonged to Joshua Howard) and was educated in Dearborn’s public schools.  The diaries begin with his leaving Dearborn for Lansing, where he attended Michigan Agricultural College (“MAC”, now Michigan State University).  The first years of the diaries (1871-1874) were reworked by Mr. Haigh sometime after 1931, and he makes his own introduction to his diaries at this point in his life.  His own words are a wonderful beginning to his adventures in journaling and his years at MAC.

Henry A. Haigh:  His Early Life 

The Following Attempt to restore some lost scraps which I formerly and fondly regarded as my Diaries during the period of the Civil War (1861 – 1865) is made here for what it may be worth.  These were hardly more than mere memories.  And yet memories, turning into traditions, were the only records of the human race for ages.

I think I can remember trying to set down something about the First Election of Lincoln, when I was not yet seven years old.  I distinctly recall having the little flagpole on which I hoisted for a time the little flag bearing Lincoln’s picture.  I know I must have written something about my older brothers going to War in 1861.  Also I must have attempted something about the Assassination of Lincoln in the spring of 1865, an event which stirred the nation to greater grief than anything else.

But anything like Diaries, if they may be called such, that were at times attempted prior to any entrance to the State Agricultural College of Lansing in February 1871, are gone for good. Lost or destroyed in the fire which consumed the entire interior of the Old Homestead of Dearborn in spring of 1900.

I do not think that anything like a regular diary was attempted prior to 1869 or 1870.  I remember that in the winter of 1864, or thereabouts, my brother, Thomas, coming home on a visit from New York, and finding me writing something in an old unused account book, suggested that I keep a record of Farm Events during the year, setting down the time of planting and harvesting each crop, and how the crop turned out. He showed me how to enter the items, the number of acres of Oats, for instance, the cost or value of the seeds, the date of sowing, the cost of labor preparing the land and the cost of tending and harvesting the crop.  And then the yield, the value and the profit.

I presume I went at this with the untrained zeal of a ten year old lad, only to leave it in a few weeks for something more novel or exciting.

I also have a distinct recollection of starting, with great enthusiasm, a “Record of the Return of the Song Birds and other birds of passage.”  Probably my brother George or my father or mother may have suggested this.  But I cannot recall that the record was kept for any great length of time, or that it was ever of much subsequent interest or value.

Likewise I recall that prior to these exploits I was seiged with a childish propensity to write something regular, preferably a history of some kind.  It may have been that I had heard some portion of Dickens’ “Child’s History of England” which came out about then and was very popular.  My brother George used to read from Dickens at Dearborn sometimes in the evening.

Anyway, I started a “History of England Vol. 1,” which greatly amused my mother, specially the spelling.  She insisted that the spelling should not be corrected, being an essential part of the authorship and one of the best things about the “History.”

So I went at the “histry” (history) with great zeal, beginning with the conquest and telling about William the Conqueror whom I much admired.

Youth loves victory, and the victor is his hero.  He delights to see his hero dashing forward at the head of his army, vanquishing his enemies and trampling upon his fallen foes.  He gives little heed to the stricken soldier being mangled under the hoofs of the gallant victor’s charger.  He is for the man who wins the fight.

Questions of the justice of the victor’s cause, its merits, methods, and its results, do not concern, nor never concern the youthful narrator.  They are left for mature minds, unblended by the glamour of the victory.

In this respect William the Conqueror seemed to me most glorious, and I depicted him in glowing terms.  William Rufus seemed to one much less picturesque, and as for Matilda, I had little use at that time for women in war or politics; and so the “histry” lapsed.

Besides we had a War of our own, and it seemed to me better to write about that.  “You know nothing about war,” my brother Richard asserted.  “And I would like to ask what you really know about this war or what it is really for.  How are you going to get the facts?”

To this I probably parried that I knew some things about the war as it was going on right there in Dearborn, where the First Michigan Sharp Shooters, a whole regiment of them, was recruiting and drilling at the Arsenal, where Barry Magoonah had both his arms shot off which happened while firing a salute last Fourth of July in honor of Governor Blair who came to deliver the colors to the Regiment.

“If you want to write about that, well and good,” my brother Richard replied, “only be sure to tell only what you really know.”

But the “History of the War in Dearborn” was never written, interesting as it might be now.  Events were coming on too fast, and too confusing, for youthful composition.  Other things more active and compelling to a growing youth claimed attention, and efforts at literary pursuit were swept aside.