Haile, William

Born: 1807-05-22 Vermont

Died: 1876-07-22 Keene, New Hampshire

Flourished: 1835 to 1873 New Hampshire

William Haile, merchant, manufacturer, and public official, was born into a farming family in Putney, Vermont. He attended common schools and the Chesterfield Academy. Haile began his career as a store clerk in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, in 1823, and after about four years established his own shop there. In 1828 he moved his store to Centre Village, then settled in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, in 1835, where he lived most of the remainder of his life. In Hinsdale Haile variously worked as a merchant, operated a lumber business, and manufactured woolens. At the time of the 1860 census, Haile owned real estate valued at $18,000 and personal property worth $75,000. He also enjoyed a long career in politics, representing Hinsdale in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, 1846-1850, 1853, and 1856, serving in the New Hampshire Senate in 1854, and acting as that body’s president the following year. In 1857 Haile was elected as a Republican to the governorship of New Hampshire and was reelected the next year to a second one-year term. He opposed the extension of slavery to the territories and the Dred Scott Decision. Subsequent to his time as governor, Haile returned to Hinsdale and resumed his business ventures. Haile represented New Hampshire at the 1860 and 1864 Republican National Conventions, acting as a vice president of the convention in 1860, and as chairman of the New Hampshire delegation in 1864. In religion, he was a member of the Congregational Church. Haile married Sabrana Walker in 1828 and the pair had four children.

Robert Sobel and John Raimo, eds., Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States 1789-1978 (Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978), 3:961-62; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Hinsdale, Cheshire County, NH, 71; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Hinsdale, Cheshire County, NH, 97; Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of 1856, 1860, and 1864 (Minneapolis, MN: Charles W. Johnson, 1893), 103, 170, 201, 248; The Boston Daily Globe (MA), 24 July 1876, 5:4; Gravestone in Pine Grove Cemetery, Hinsdale, NH.