J. Ridgeway Haines (1821-1899)
& Sarah Grant Haines (1822-1903)
Class of 2026 – Founders
Jonathan Ridgeway Haines (1821-1899) and Sarah Grant Haines (1822-1903) were children born of the Great Quaker Migration into Ohio in the early years of Statehood. Sarah and Ridgeway, their children, their relatives, as well as friends and neighbors throughout nearby counties became involved with the Western Anti-Slavery Society, headquartered in Salem. The 126-acre Haines Farm hosted great gatherings of Abolitionists, with men and women of both races during the decade preceding the Civil War. Day-long events featured prominent speakers, songs, band music, grand meals, and parades to the Haines Grove on the hill in front of their elegant brick home. The family also secretly aided Freedom Seekers on their Underground Railroad journey to Canada.
Relative Erma Grant Pluchel recounted the family tradition that, “Many a fugitive slave was assisted to escape by Ridgeway Haines, his home being a station between Salem, Ohio, Marlboro and Limaville, O. . . . Many a night he stood guard gun in hand, taking care of the poor slaves he was harboring in the little attic room over his kitchen. His son, John C. or “Tump” as he was known, a boy of twelve also stood guard & helped to drive the slaves to the next station under cover of darkness.” Ridgeway Haines, “early in 1842, espoused the anti-slavery cause, which was a most unpopular cause at that time” according to The History of Stark County in 1881. References to the use of the Haines House as an Underground Railroad station appeared in the obituaries of both Ridgeway and Sarah.
The Haines House sat as a lone farmhouse on 126 acres of land less than 100 yards from what was one of the easternmost Underground Railroad trails in Ohio, now known as State Route 183. According to Siebert’s detailed map, Alliance sat as a focal point of Underground Railroad trails that led from three points, Mechanicstown and Hanoverton/New Garden from the south and Salem from the east. Fugitive slaves moved on from Alliance on two routes, one to Limaville and then Randolph, and the other through Marlboro to Randolph. The trail continued to Hudson and on to Lake Erie.
Two well-documented Abolitionist meetings were held in a grove on the Haines farm. On August 13, 1859, a young people’s meeting was held at the Haines Grove that was chaired by prominent African American businessman William J. Whipper. John Mercer Langston and his brother Charles Henry Langston also spoke at this meeting. Charles had only a few weeks before been released from prison after the resolution of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescuers trial. On August 1, 1860, a “Negroes Convention” held in the Haines Grove featured African American Jermain Wesley Loguen whose book, The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman. A Narrative of Real Life, had been published in Syracuse the year before.
Documentation of the Grant and Haines family’s Abolitionist involvement is extensive. The Western Anti-Slavery Society was headquartered in nearby Salem, where Ridgeway Haines grew up. A family story suggests that as a young man in Salem he first helped a runaway slave and his two daughters in their flight to freedom. Society records and the Society’s newspaper, The Anti-Slavery Bugle, show that beginning in 1849 John Grant, Sarah Haines and Ridgeway Haines were regular contributors to the Society. Ridgeway was elected a Vice President of the Society in 1860. During the 1850s, the Society’s Anniversary Meeting alternated between Salem and Alliance. In the years when the three-day event was held in the Alliance area, Ridgeway Haines served as a member of the planning committee. During the 1857 Anniversary Meeting, one of Salem’s most active UGRR conductors, Daniel Howell Hise, records that he visited with Abby & Stephen Symonds Foster, Parker Pillsbury, Andrew T. Foss who were staying at the Haines’ home. Hise’s journal is one of the most enduring records of life in mid-19th century Ohio. His home is on the National Register and is one of eleven Ohio Underground Railroad sites featured on the National Park Service’s ‘Aboard the Underground Railroad National Register Itinerary website.
The Haines and Hise families had a friendship that spanned over three decades. Hise’s daily journal records visits before and after the Civil War. Among the entries is one dated January 8, 1853 that reports that Daniel enjoyed a dish of oysters with I. N. Pierce at the Haines House. Pierce is the only other station operator from Alliance, besides Ridgeway Haines, mentioned in Siebert’s Mysteries of Ohio’s Underground Railroads.
One tantalizing historic connection is that of the Grant family to one of the earliest African American settlements in northeast Ohio, New Guinea, just a little over a mile to the northeast from the original Grant property. This settlement had its beginnings around 1810 and grew to have as many as 200 inhabitants in the 1850s. In 1823, African Americans David Day and his brother, Soloman, purchased a quarter section of land in the heart of this area. David Day sold an acre of this property to the Christs Disciples Church. This plot became the church (and community’s) meeting house and graveyard. In the late 1830s the Day brothers moved to Logan County, Ohio and sold a part of their remaining property to Stacy Grant, John Grant’s brother.
Ridgeway Haines purchased the house that his father-in-law built in 1852 along with 126 acres of the original 160-acre land grant. Mr. and Mrs. Haines raised six children here, 3 boys and 3 girls. Their oldest son, John, served three years in the Union army in the 19th infantry and played cornet in the regimental band. The Haines were a musical family and the three Haines boys formed the first Alliance City Band. As Mr. and Mrs. Haines became too old to farm, they were fortunate to have settled next to a growing city. They supported themselves in their retirement years by selling off sections of their farm. Mr. Haines died in 1899 and Mrs. Haines in 1903. They are buried in Alliance City Cemetery.