Papers of Bishop Gilbert Haven

Gilbert Haven, (1821-1880), a minister, an educator and later Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church and was an active abolitionist and radical throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras. The issues of temperance and women’s rights in the church were of interest as well. Haven was born and raised in Malden, Massachusetts, who was descended on both sides of his parent’s family from the New England Puritans. He was the son of Gilbert Haven Sr. and Hannah Burrill Haven. Prior to his birth, Haven's parents still belonged to the Congregationalist Church until joining the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1821. Haven stated he embraced a more evangelical faith in 1839 while attending the coeducational Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. By the fall of 1842, Haven headed to Middletown, Connecticut, to enroll in Wesleyan University which was one of the premier Methodist Episcopal Church colleges at that time. As a Wesleyan student he attended services and worked at "the African Church" which served Middletown’s free black population. In 1846, Haven began teaching ancient languages at Amenia Seminary in Dutchess County, New York and remained there four years, eventually becoming its principal.

Haven obtained a local preacher's license in 1847 which officially began his long ministerial career in the Methodist Episcopal Church. During his tenure at Amenia, Haven declared his intent to join the New England Annual Conference in 1850. At this same time he became a dedicated and active abolitionist following the Compromise of 1850 and the passage of the stricter Federal Fugitive Slave Law that was part of the Compromise. That same year Haven preached his first abolitionist sermon appealing to the "Higher Law" and encouraging a noncompliance with the Fugitive Slave Law. The New England Annual Conference appointed Haven to serve in the following churches: Northampton (1851-1852), Wilbraham (1853-1854), Westfield (1855-1856), Roxbury (1857-1858), and Cambridge (1859-1860). Haven ministered to the free black communities near his church appointments which provided a chance to treat blacks as full social equals. This action caused some friction with his parishioners. The annual conference granted Haven supernumerary status in 1861 so he could travel abroad and serve as a Civil War chaplain. Within the New England Annual Conference, Haven served on the general committee on education and examination board, co-founded the Church Extension Aid Society, supported the Boston Irish Mission, and worked on the Preacher's Aid, and Temperance committees. In the late 1850s, Haven was active in attempts to add anti-slavery planks and prohibitions to New England Conference rules and platforms for its members and denominational standings.

By October 1861, Haven took the position as temporary minister to the Clinton Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey, while at the same time working as the Boston correspondent for the Christian Advocate and the unnamed New York contributor for Zion's Herald. Haven journeyed to Europe in 1862 for rest and recuperation, returning in 1863 when he was appointed the pastor of North Russell St. Church (later First Methodist Church) of Boston. In 1867 Haven was elected the editor of Zion's Herald.

The 1872 General Conference elected Haven a bishop and assigned to Atlanta, Georgia, during the latter period of Reconstruction in the American South. Haven's views on anti-slavery translated into strident opinions on political and social equality among the races, and he heavily involved himself in efforts to expand educational opportunities for freedmen. However his status as a pro-Unionist New Englander and his vocal opinions on race made him decidedly unpopular among the white population in former Confederate territory.

In the mid 1870s, following his 1873 trip to Mexico with William Butler to attempt to spread the Methodist Episcopal Church into Mexico with a 1876 trip to Liberia, while in coastal West Africa he contracted a fever (apparently malaria) from which his health never fully recovered. Active as a Bishop in the M. E Church throughout the late 1870s, Haven remained a vocal and uncompromising proponent of Reconstruction and advocated for stronger civil rights laws even after the political climate of the 1870s shifted away from Reconstruction. This resulted in his marginalization in political circles and put him in conflict with much of the Methodist Church hierarchy. After his return from Liberia, his health problems and political ostracism resulted in his status as a Bishop without an appointment. Haven was plagued by increasing health difficulties and recurring problems from the tropical fever. He died on January 3, 1880 in Malden, Massachusetts at the Haven family home. Over his career, in addition to writing for the "Christian Advocate" and writing for/editing Zion's Herald, Haven also wrote The Pilgrim's Wallet (1866), National Sermons (1869), Father Taylor, The Sailor Preacher (with Thomas Russell, 1872), Our Next Door Neighbor: A Winter in Mexico (1875), and the posthumous Christus Consulator (1893). While in Europe, Mexico, and Africa, Haven also produced accounts and opinions on his experiences-- which were published in newspapers

While at Wesleyan University, Haven adopted anti-slavery views in response to reading abolitionist tracts and the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier. He appears to have absorbed the reform zeal that was active throughout New England during the 1840s and 1850s. Haven supported the single-issue anti-slavery Liberty Party as early as 1844. In a contemporary letter to his mother, Haven states he was viewed by his peers, many of whom were opposed to his views, as a ranting, fanatical abolitionist. Haven responded to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) with a sermon titled, The Death of Freedom, following the caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate. Haven declared the senator a "martyr for truth in history" (1856). He was active in the interdenominational Church Anti-Slavery Society from 1859 until the Civil War.

Haven often criticized other abolitionists, particularly William Lloyd Garrison and his followers (Garrisonians) for directing their anti-slavery radicalism toward other causes without reference to religious viewpoints, or room for difference on non-slavery issues. He strongly felt this led to an alienating effect on other abolitionists or non-radicals who were otherwise sympathetic to the anti-slavery movement, but not in favor of radically remaking the American social order on a number of other issues. Haven believed that the unorthodox religious views of Garrison and many of his followers undercut support among Evangelicals for abolitionist aims - particularly the views of such figures as Theodore Parker, on whose death Haven referred to as, "the first great American infidel."

In 1859, Haven met John Brown who made a lasting impression on him. He referred to John Brown's Raid in an essay called The Beginning of the End of American Slavery (1859). Haven was prevented from giving a further endorsement in a sermon to Brown's insurrection on the day of Brown's execution.

During the late 1850s, Haven supported the Free Soil Party, and later, the Republican Party despite its anti-slavery focus being too moderate for his preference. He hailed Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency in a sermon that later appeared as a pamphlet titled, The Cause and Consequence of the Election of Abraham Lincoln. (1860). Haven was a believer in the Slave Power thesis in regards to sectional tensions. Personally, Haven advocated openly that he was in favor of social, business, and political equality and was in favor of the removal of all laws against interracial marriage, any law promoting segregation, and laws denying black voting. He disapproved of colonization schemes for freed blacks.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Haven enlisted in the ninety-day regiment, the 8th Massachusetts Militia Volunteers as its Chaplain, and was commissioned by the Governor of Massachusetts, John Albion Andrew, on April 18, 1861. The 8th Massachusetts shipped down to Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of the Firing on Fort Sumter and eventually spent its short existence garrisoning areas around Baltimore while the Union Army organized. During his time in Washington and the Potomac regions of Maryland and Virginia, Haven recorded conversations with freed slaves and other free blacks and reported his findings back to Zions Herald, New England Methodism’s weekly newspaper. These same findings appeared in the Christian Advocate which was the denominational newspaper. Haven's three-month enlistment ended in the summer of 1861 and he returned to civilian life.

Gilbert Haven married Mary Ingraham of Amenia, New York, in 1851. She bore him four children, of whom two survived to adulthood: Mary Michelle "Mamie" and William Ingraham Haven. Mary Ingraham Haven died due to complications from childbirth on April 3, 1860. William Ingraham Haven ( c.1856-1928) became a Methodist minister in his own right in the New England Annual Conference. Gilbert Haven is the cousin of Bishop Erasmus Otis Haven (1820-1881). The two cousins often corresponded. After Mary Ingraham Haven's death in 1860, Gilbert Haven maintained regular correspondence and a close relationship with Mary's sisters, brothers, and in-laws throughout the rest of his life. Bishop Haven died on January 3, 1880, at the home of his mother. Haven is buried in the Salem Street Cemetery, Malden, Massachusetts.