361 Years Ago in 1657

​First in a series of biographical sketches on members of the House of Burgesses whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company in honor of the 400th anniversary of the July 30, 1619, meeting of the first representative governmental body in American at the 1617 Church on Jamestown Island


​Captain John Haynie was elected to the Virginia Houses of Burgesses to represent Northumberland County, VA, in 1657.  Who was this man?
  By 1650, John Haynie was living in Northumberland County, VA, and states in a deposition recorded in 20 August 1655 that he is 31 years of age or thereabouts; it is this court record that establishes his birth year as 1624.  His will was recorded at a court held 22 July 1697, but his actual will was destroyed by a fire in 1710.  John Haynie transported 34 people from England into the VA Colony; he was a surveyor, a Justice, a planter, a King’s Attorney for Northumberland County, a Captain in the Susquehanna War, a vestryman in Wicomico Parish and later a member of St. Stephens Parish in present-day Heathsville, VA.
   About 1650, Haynie married Jane Morris, daughter of Nicholas and Martha Morris who were in the VA Colony by 1641.  John and Jane Haynie had six children:  Richard [married (1) Elizabeth Bridgar (2) Elinor]; Anthony [married Sarah Harris]; John Haynie [married (1) Mary Sadler (2) Jane]; Martha [spouse unknown]; Elizabeth [married Peter Presley]; and Anne [married Thomas Harding].  Jane and John Haynie also reared Jane Morris, the only child of Jane Morris Haynie’s brother Anthony; and Thomas Harding, Jr., orphan of Anne Haynie Harding and Thomas Harding.
   According to VA Land Patents recorded in  Cavaliers  and  Pioneers,  John  Haynie owned about 4750 acres in Northumberland County and was a wealthy planter elected to represent Northumberland in the VA House of Burgesses in 1657.  He was also appointed the clerk of the market for Wicomico and set up an ordinary near the courthouse in 1681.
  Although clerks for the Northumberland County records spell John Haynie’s name as Haney and Haynie, John Haynie was literate; his signature showed that he spelled his name as Haynie.
   Tidewater Virginia Families and other books on early Virginia families speculate that Captain John Haynie was probably the son of John and Elizabeth Hayney.  John Hayney came to VA from Devon on the Margett and John in 1621; Elizabeth Hanie arrived on the Abigail in 1622. They first lived on Company land in Elizabeth Cittie at Buck Roe, near today’s city of Hampton, in a palisaded home with Nicholas Rowe and his wife and two indentured servants. John and Elizabeth are listed in the Muster of Virginia inhabitants in 1624/25.  In 1632 John Hayney, planter, lived at Point Comfort Island; in April 1635 in Accomack County; and in June 1635 Charles River County (later York County). By the time he was 41 years of age in 1635 he was living on land on the Poquoson River about 75 miles from the 1650 home of Captain John Haynie in Northumberland County, VA.  This county first began to be settled in 1635 by the English merchant class.  If Captain John Haynie was the son of John and Elizabeth Hayney, he was born in Virginia at Buck Roe in Elizabeth Cittie.
 
First Mississippi Company Descendants of Captain John Haynie: Shirley Haynie Godsey; Anna, Lauren, & Harrison Parmer; Alden, Meril, & Emeril John IV Lagasse; Cherry Haynie Lovelace & Caroline Lovelace; Kim Reed;, Lauren Stacey; Leslie Reed-Jones; Susan Burroughs; Mary Flood; Marcia Flood
 

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