Born in Waterville, Maine on May 12, 1839, Josiah Manchester Haynes was graduated from Waterville College in 1860.
For the next three years he was employed as the Principal of Lincoln Academy before moving to New York to study law in the firm of Hawkins & Cothran. In 1865 he was admitted to the New York Bar but never practiced law, choosing instead to return to Maine and enter the lumber business.
By 1875 Haynes had become President of the Kennebec Land and Lumber Company but his success did not stop there. He became owner and President of Haynes & Dewitt Ice Company and was extensively engaged in lumber and shipbuilding.
He was the promoter and President of the Augusta, Hallowell and Gardiner Electric Railway, the owner and builder of Augusta’s Opera House, a director of the Edwards Manufacturing Company and a director of the Knickerbocker Steam and Towage Company.
Elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1876 and again in 1877, he was quickly recognized as one of the State’s most eloquent defenders of the principles of finance capitalism.
The next year he was elected to the State Senate and returned in 1879 in time to preside over that body while the State teetered on the brink of its own civil war.
In 1882, he was again elected to the Maine House and chosen its Speaker. He was a delegate to several Republican National Conventions and a member of the National Committee.
Well-educated, shrewd and urbane, Haynes was to the local scene what the Carnegies and Rockefellers were to the national -- the epitome of nineteenth century capitalism triumphant.
To amass wealth and be a public-spirited gentleman was the American religion which Haynes faithfully practiced to the end of his life, promoting gas and electric companies as well as interurban transportation throughout Maine and several cities in the west.