San Francisco County Biographies

HON. HENRY HUNTLEY HAIGHT

Submitted by: Pamela Storm Wolfskill & Ron Filion

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


 
San Francisco Theological Seminary, 1907

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE FOUNDERS AND PRINCIPAL SUPPORTERS 
OF THE SAN FRANCISCO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
Hon. Henry Huntley Haight 
The importance of theological education is realized not only by the ministry, 
but also by thoughtful men in all vocations.  This is evidenced by the fact that 
there have been constantly upon the Board of Directors of the San Francisco 
Theological Seminary lawyers, professors, business men and men of many other 
callings.  One of the most prominent, able and faithful of these was the 
Honorable Henry H. Haight, a leading lawyer of San Francisco, one of 
California�s first citizens, and a man of national reputation. 
Governor Haight came of a long line of worthy English and Scotch ancestors, some 
of whom came to America as early as 1628.  He was born May 20, 1825, in 
Rochester, N.Y., and died in San Francisco September 2, 1878, at the age of 
fifty-three years.  He graduated in 1844 from Yale College, and was admitted to 
practice at the Bar in 1847 in St. Louis, Mo.  He was a lawyer, as has been 
said, �by hereditary descent,� as the practice of law had been followed by his 
ancestry for more than three generations.  He started for California in 1849 and 
reached San Francisco in January, 1850.  He at once entered upon the practice of 
his profession there and continued in it until his death. 
On January 24, 1855, he was married to Miss Anna E. Bissell of St. Louis, 
daughter of Captain Lewis Bissell of the United States Army.  Mr. Haight 
preferred the practice of law to politics, and twice refused the United States 
Senatorship. 
In St. Louis he edited a �Free Soil� paper, but he was not willing to sustain 
President Lincoln in some of his administrative policies, and so he became a 
Union Democrat during the Civil War.  In 1867 he was elected Governor of 
California on the Democratic ticket and ably filled the office for four years.  
In the memorial adopted by the Supreme Court of California after his death it is 
said, concerning the Governors of the State: 
�Among them all no one stands higher than Henry Huntley Haight.�  He was a 
statesman, able, exalted and true, with a keen, cultured and well-stored mind. 
Governor Haight was a man of profound religious convictions, and these he clung 
to in his professional life.  These words were true concerning him: 
Whatever legal maze he wandered through, 
He kept the Sermon on the Mount in view, 
And justice always into mercy grew. 
He was for years a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, taught a Bible 
class, and ever had an abiding faith in the word of God.  He was a generous 
giver, not only to his own church, but also to many other benevolent 
enterprises. 
When the San Francisco Theological Seminary was organized in 1871 Governor 
Haight was elected a member of the first Board of Directors, became one of the 
first Trustees, and was the first Attorney for the Seminary.  In these positions 
he remained as long as he lived, giving freely of his time, money, counsel and 
efforts to its establishment and development.  His works are his best monument.  
May his example intice others to like devotion to the interest of our Seminary. 

Source:  Curry, James, D.D., History of the San Francisco Theological Seminary 
of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and Its Alumni Association 
Reporter Publishing Company, Vacaville, California, 1907.