Title: Theron W. Haight Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1849-1912

Creator:

• Haight, Theron Wilber, 1840-1913

Call Number: Wis Mss RC

Quantity: 1.0 c.f. (3 archives boxes and 1 small box)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Theron W. Haight, a Waukesha, Wisconsin, newspaperman and attorney, including family correspondence (1849-1908), and short entry diaries (1866, 1877-1881, 1883-1885, 1892-1899, 1901, 1908-1913), a few speeches, and a history of Wisconsin written by Theron's son Frank. Correspondence (1849-1861) of Theron's brother Morris concerns his settlement near Summit, Wis. Theron's Civil War letters (1861-1863) concern his service in the 24th New York Infantry in Virginia, including the battles of Ft. Royal, Gainesville, and Second Bull Run, where he was taken prisoner. Theron's courtship correspondence with Annie Youmans, whom he married in 1870, is also included. After the Civil War, Haight served briefly as school principal at Mukwonago, Wis., on the editorial staff of the Milwaukee Sentinel (1866-1868), and as publisher and editor of the Waukesha County Freeman (1870-1876). From 1876 to 1878, he was Secretary of the Wisconsin Board of Charities.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-wis000rc

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Although Theron W. Haight spent most of the year 1860 in Wisconsin as a school teacher at Delafield, his continued residence in the state commenced after the Civil War. He returned to Waukesha County in 1864 from his family home in Jefferson County, New York.

Haight first taught, as principal, for a year and a half at Mukwonago. He then studied law in Milwaukee in the office of Gen. James H. Paine and Son and subsequently was employed as teacher of commercial law in the Spencerian Business College, Milwaukee. He then served on the editorial staff of the Milwaukee Sentinel before returning to Mukwonago to teach from 1868 to 1870. At that time he purchased the Waukesha Freeman and edited the paper until 1876 when he sold his interest to his partner, H.M. Youmans, but continued to contribute to its columns for most of his life.

From 1876 to 1878 Height was secretary of the Wisconsin Board of Charities. In the latter year he established his law practice in Waukesha. Over the years he served as correspondent for Milwaukee and Chicago newspapers and worked briefly as editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1880.

A Republican, Haight served for several years as chairman of the Republican County Committee in Waukesha. He was Justice of the Peace for ten years, a member of the County Board of Supervisors, and a village attorney of Waukesha. Prominent in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Haight was one-time Grand Patriarch of Wisconsin. He was also active in the Grand Army of the Republic and served from 1882 to 1885 as junior vice commander of the Wisconsin GAR.

As editor of the Waukesha Freeman, Haight did much to advance Waukesha as a health resort. In 1892, he represented the city in opposition to a plan to pipe Waukesha water to Chicago and won his appeal to the governor. In 1902, Haight joined La Follette ranks in opposition to public service corporations' continued unregulated operation and wrote a series of newspaper articles, principally for the Milwaukee Free Press, supporting the La Follette viewpoint.

Haight lived with his family in Waukesha until his death on October 20, 1913, and was long one of the city's foremost attorneys and respected citizens. He promoted the organization of Waukesha County Historical Society and furthered erection of a Soldier's Memorial in Cutler Park and a Cushing Memorial on the Cushing homestead near Delafield. He was active in the public support of Waukesha Public Library.

In addition to writing for newspapers and periodicals, Haight authored three books: Three Wisconsin Cushings, published by the Wisconsin History Commission in 1910; Memoirs of Waukesha County from Earliest Days to the Present (1907); and The Divine Weeks of Josuah Sylvester, a translation from the French of William de Saluste (1908).

Theron Wilber Haight was born September 14, 1840, in Jefferson County, New York. Son of Morris and Lois Myrick Haight, natives of Dutchess County, New York. Theron was the youngest of seven children: Elizabeth, Elvira, Cecelia, Morris P., Lois Mary, Charles S., and Theron. Both Morris and Elizabeth (Mrs. Walter Kerr) preceded Theron to Wisconsin. Morris married Mary Schuyler and they lived at Summit, Wisconsin. He enlisted in the Twenty-eighth Wisconsin Infantry and died in February of 1863, at Helena, Arkansas. Elizabeth (Mrs. Walter Kerr) lived at Delafield. The elder Haights, Morris and Lois, came to Wisconsin from Jefferson County, New York, in 1867 and lived and farmed at Hartland. He died in 1870; his wife, in 1875.

Theron Haight was a brilliant student as a young man. At 16 he entered upon a classical course under Rev. William Paret of the village of Pierrepont Manor (later Bishop of Maryland). At 17, Haight taught one year in the public school then became an assistant teacher in Dr. Paret's school. At 19, he was prepared to enter the junior class in college. He then made his first trip to Wisconsin to teach in order to accumulate necessary funds. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he returned to New York and enlisted May 3, 1861, in Company K, Twenty-fourth New York Infantry.

Haight's war record was notable. He served in the Virginia campaigns, in the Battles of Fredericksburg, Spottsylvania, Fort Royal, Gainesville, Second Bull Run, and many less-famed. He rose to first lieutenant in May, 1863. Taken prisoner at Second Bull Run, he was paroled and exchanged during the Battle of Fredericksburg. His term of enlistment expired May 29, 1863, and as both his brothers had been killed in the war, his parents needed his services, and he was mustered out.

Haight married Annie Maria Youmans, daughter of Dr. H.A. and Lucy (Andrews) Youmans of Mukwonago on April 15, 1870. They had six children: Lucy (Mrs. W.B. Strong); Henry Maurice, Frank Putney, Robert Wilber, Walter Lyman, and Margaret Adele (Mrs. Arthur W. Ovitt). At the time of Theron Haight's death (1913), Frank Putney was living in Waukesha, after heading the American News Syndicate in Japan; Robert W. was with the Chicago Inter-Ocean; Walter L. was with the Racine Times; Mrs. Strong lived at St. Martins and wrote for the Milwaukee Free Press; Mrs. Ovitt lived in Madison.

Theron Haight's widow, Mrs. Annie Haight, lived until 1950. At that time only three of the children survived: Putney, then living at Monrovia, Calif.; Mrs. Ovitt, of Madison; and Walter L. Haight, assistant secretary of the Madison Gas and Electric Company in Racine.

• Milwaukee Sentinel , October 22, 1913.
• Waukesha Freeman , October 23, 1913.
• Haight, Walter L., Racine County in the World War . Racine: 1920.
• Haight, Theron W., The Divine Weeks of Josuah Sylvester . Waukesha: H.M. Youmans, 1908.
• Haight, Theron W., Memoirs of Waukesha County . Madison: Western Historical Association, 1907.
• Haight, Theron W., The Three Wisconsin Cushings . Madison: Wisconsin History Commission, 1910.
• The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin . Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1880.
• Men of Progress, Wisconsin . Milwaukee: The Evening Wisconsin Company, 1897.
• Portrait and Biographical Record of Waukesha County, Wisconsin . Chicago: Excelsior Publishing Company, 1894.
• Report of the Proceeding of the Meetings of the State Bar Association of Wisconsin , 1912-1913-1914. Milwaukee: Evening Wisconsin Company, 1915.
• Soldiers' and Citizens' Album of Biographical Record . Chicago: Grand Army Publishing Company, 1880.
• Milwaukee Journal , July 28, 1929 (concerning Haight's authorship of The Divine Weeks of Josuah Sylvester )

The Theron W. Haight Papers consist almost wholly of his family letters and his personal diaries. There are, in addition, some miscellaneous inclusions--an 1832 Myrick family will (his maternal grandfather's); biographical records; genealogical forms--and speeches and unpublished manuscripts by Theron W. Haight and by his son, Putney Haight.

Correspondence in the Theron W. Haight Papers spans from 1849 to 1908, with an additional Putney Haight letter dated 1949. Theron W. Haight's diaries cover 1866, are complete from 1877 to 1881, from 1883 to 1885, from 1892 to 1899, 1901, and from 1908 to 1913, the year of his death.

Nearly all of the letters are handwritten. In number, they exceed 300 individual letters; roughly one half were written by Theron W. Haight himself.

The best, and most complete, sequence of letters was written by Haight to his parents in Lorraine, Jefferson County, New York, while he served with the Twenty-fourth New York Infantry Volunteers during the Civil War. From May, 1861, to his discharge in the spring of 1863, Haight wrote regularly and in much detail of his battle experiences and his day-by-day life as a soldier. They are well-phrased and clear accounts of many major battles; they are of more than routine interest to the Wisconsin story of the Civil War, since in the course of his service with the Twenty-fourth New York, Haight's regiment belonged to General Rufus King's division of McDowell's Army.

Haight was a classical scholar and his avid interest in reading is apparent in the correspondence included in his Papers that he exchanged with school and service friends throughout the wartime period.

Elsewhere in the correspondence in the Theron W. Haight Papers are letters from Morris P. Haight from Summit, Wis., to his family in New York, written between 1849 and 1861; letters from Theron to Morris pertinent to his settling in Wisconsin; correspondence between Rev. William Paret and Theron spanning many years; letters to Theron from a wide range of acquaintances and relatives in New York and in the West; and letters from Theron to a student, “Annie,” who in 1870 became his wife.

Actual business correspondence is extremely limited. Theron Haight's letters home discuss his changing situations in teaching jobs, law study, and newspaper work. There are a few letters concerned with the Waukesha Freeman; bits of correspondence between Haight and newspapers for which he served as correspondent (including two letters from S. Cadwallader, dated November, 1871, when Cadwallader was secretary of the Milwaukee News Company); letters written to his family in Waukesha from Madison while he was secretary of the Wisconsin State Board of Charities; a letter from Congressman Charles G. Williams seeking Haight's advice on the Mukwonago postmastership; and random statements from Waukesha and Milwaukee firms.

The Haight diaries vary widely in amount of detail and pertinent information. For some years (e.g. 1880, 1892, 1897) there are only random entries and many of these are simply one-line notations of destination for the day or serve as a calendar of his cases in court. His diaries for 1877 and 1878, while he was secretary of the Wisconsin Board of Charities, describe his day-by-day work and include partial schedules of his visits to state institutions; there are also memoranda on board meetings and the condition of some Wisconsin prisons. The diaries would most certainly be helpful to anyone reconstructing a detailed chronology, for they outline Haight's changes of occupation and interests. When closely read, they probably would be meaningful to a student of Wisconsin law, since there are many brief notations on individual cases. His diary of 1879 mentions an overnight visit of “Thwaites of the State Journal,” and in 1910, there are several entries concerned with his transactions with Reuben Gold Thwaites (then secretary of the State Historical Society) over Haight's manuscript on the Cushings.

There are obvious gaps in the Theron W. Haight Papers. He was foremost a lawyer and there is very little in the correspondence or diaries that actually describes this major occupation of his lifetime. He was a successful newsman and there is very little in the Papers which could be used in a study of Wisconsin journalism.

On the other hand, there is much in the Theron W. Haight Papers which describes the man himself, his philosophy, his attitude toward Wisconsin, his family, his community. If other papers more directly concerned with his writing or his legal practice come to light, it would seem that here is a body of material from which to build a biography of an extremely capable and intelligent Wisconsin citizen. “Human interest” is here: a young man's decision between ministry, teaching, newspapering, the law; an intellectual easterner in post-Civil War Wisconsin; and the sheer romance of a man's writing first to a student in school-teacher manner with pages full of corrections for her letters to him--then gradually these letters becoming less pedagogical and in time, the teacher marrying his student.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Walter L. Haight, September 20, 1955.

Processing Information

Processed by Margery H. Brown.

	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   1	1849-1861 Scope and Content Note: Letters from Morris P. Haight to his parents and to Theron W. Haight (his brother), written from Summit, Wis., and from Theron to Morris in return. Letters to Theron's parents from scattered relatives and children. Letters to Theron from friends in other New York communities, Nebraska Territory, Rev. William Paret, written before and after his departure for Wisconsin in 1860. Beginning in June 1861, Theron wrote home first from Elmira, New York, where he enlisted with the Twenty-fourth New York Infantry Volunteers; then from Belleville, New York; subsequently from Camp Walker near Washington; Bailey's Cross Roads in Virginia; Arlington Mills, Virginia; and Upton's Hill.
Box   1 Folder   2	1862 Scope and Content Note: Some 50 letters, the majority written directly from the battlefield by Theron and dispatched to his parents. They cover his march to Centreville in the spring, encampment opposite Fredericksburg, action at Fort Royal, Waterloo Bridge, Gainesville, Groveton. There is a letter from Washington, September 8, describing Manassas, his imprisonment and parole, and a series of letters from “Camp Parole,” Annapolis. This block of correspondence also includes letters to Theron from family members and friends. At year's end, Haight writes from a camp near Fredericksburg.
Box   1 Folder   3	1863-1864 Scope and Content Note: Increased number of letters exchanged with fellow servicemen. Continued regular correspondence of Haight home--from Belle Plain, Fredericksburg. There are many letters from friends after Haight leaves the service. Haight writes home from Wisconsin, May 11, 1864, from Summit just before he arranges for the principalship at Mukwonago; later letters describe his situation there.
Box   1 Folder   4	1865-1866 Scope and Content Note: Between January and October, 1865, there are regular exchanges of letters between Theron and his parents and sisters, and letters to Theron from friends. In October, Haight leaves Mukwonago for Milwaukee to study law; letters at this time discuss his parents' coming to Wisconsin. Here there are initial letters from Theron to Annie Youmans, whom he later marries, and correspondence to Annie from her friends and relatives. There are letters from other Haight children written to Morris and Lois Haight in Lorraine.
Box   2 Folder   1	1867-1869, 1871-1872, 1874 Scope and Content Note: Letters to Theron W. Haight from friends in Wisconsin, New York, Ohio. Letters from Theron to Annie Youmans; after 1871, random letters from Theron Haight on business matters from office of Waukesha Freeman, correspondence with Milwaukee News Co. (S. Cadwallader), and Chicago Times on Haight's work as a correspondent.
Box   2 Folder   2	1877-1878, 1880-1883, 1902, 1903, 1908 Scope and Content Note: Letters from Theron W. Haight to his wife Annie from Madison during his secretaryship of Wisconsin Board of Charities; letters from friends and relatives to Mrs. Haight; letters to Haight from newspapers relative to his correspondence.
Box   2 Folder   3	Speeches and Addresses Scope and Content Note: “An Old-Time Monopolist,” undated; “A Book Talk in the First Decade of the Twentieth Century,” written for his wife by Theron W. Haight for her delivery before Beacon Lights meeting, 1900; “Gainesville, Groveton and Bull Run,” read by Haight, November 6, 1895.
Box   2 Folder   4	Writings of Frank Putney Haight Scope and Content Note: A thirteen-unit Wisconsin history, divided into these headings: Railroad, I & II; Canal, I & II; Banks, I; Characters, I & II; Great Election Hoax, I; Capitol, I & II; Hubbell, I & II; and Badger Mystery, I. The Railroad units deal largely with Byron Kilbourn's experiences, as do the sections titled “Canal.” “Banks” covers banking in territorial Wisconsin. James Duane Doty is the central subject of the units titled “Characters.” The election of 1840 is dealt with in “The Great Election Hoax.” The two units on “Capitol” trace location and construction of the capitol at Madison. The impeachment trial in 1853 of Judge Levi Hubbell is covered in the two units titled “Hubbell” and “Badger Mystery” traces the development of the state seal. (Although unsigned, the writings are attributed to Frank Putney Haight, in a memo accompanying the collection and in a field report of William J. Schereck's.) There is also an untitled 28-page account of Wisconsin, 1836-1856.
Box   2 Folder   5	Miscellaneous Scope and Content Note: Includes the will of John Myrick, Theron W. Haight's maternal grandfather, which leaves 100 acres of land near Lorraine to Haight's mother, Lois Myrick Haight, the farm Theron grew up on. The will is dated June 8, 1832, signed in Dutchess County, N.Y. There are three bills, dated 1852 and 1857, presented to Theron's father, Morris Haight, from his creditors for services. There is a commission signed by Governor Nelson Dewey, July 4, 1851, appointing John R. Sharpstien colonel of the Fifth Regiment of Wisconsin Militia; an account of Company K, Twenty-fourth Wisconsin [New York?] Infantry, presumably dispatched to the Jefferson County (N.Y.) News by Theron Haight; St. Matthias Church (Waukesha) biographical records for Theron, Annie, and Lucy Haight; a report card for Haddie Haight (1889), a list of addresses, and newspaper clippings.
	Individually Bound Diaries
Box   3a	Theron W. Haight diaries, 1866, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1892, 1893, 1891, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1903, 1910, 1911; Annie Haight, , 1903
Box   3b	Theron Haight diaries, 1909, 1912