This biographical sketch of William D. Haynie
appeared in A Memorial and Biographical History of Navarro,
Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon
Counties, Texas (1893).* Bracketed matter has been added.
WILLIAM D. HAYNIE
WILLIAM D. HAYNIE, one of the successful business men of Navarro county, is a son of George and Sidney (Linn) Haynie, natives of Tennessee. The parents reared a family of nine children, as follows: Rhoda, deceased; Lewis B., a prominent citizen of Rice, Navarro county; Amanda, wife of R. M. Tyus, of Texas; George, deceased; William D., our subject; John B., a prosperous farmer and ginner of Rice; Mary Jane, wife of George Mayo; Fanny, deceased, was the wife of Mr. Eubanks; and Robert, deceased.
William D. Haynie was born in Tennessee, April 29, 1837, and ten years later he emigrated with his parents to Tehuacana Hills, Texas, while the Indians constituted a large portion of the population of that place, but which has since become the seat of Trinity University. His father died when he was fifteen years of age, and he remained with his mother until eighteen or nineteen years old, when he took entire management of his father?s estate. Three years later, in company with Joseph Lynn, he engaged in the mercantile business at Cotton Gin, in connection with his former occupation. In 1860 he began the same business at Chatfield, Navarro county, and in 1861 enlisted in the Confederate service, taking a company of thirty men to Galveston, where they organized. Mr. Haynie withdrew from the position of First Lieutenant, went into the commissary department, and served in Louisiana and Texas until the close of the war. He then returned to Chatfield, where he shared the common fate of the Southern patriot, having to commence anew, as he had lost nearly all by the war. Soon after his return he moved to where Rice now stands, where he extensively and successfully engaged in the stock business, but was compelled to discontinue, as the country became rapidly settled and fenced, not leaving him sufficient range to carry on the business as extensively as he desired. He consequently sold to the Matador Cattle Company, and turned his attention to the real-estate and loan business, also buying stock in the Corsicana National Bank, of which he was one of the organizers, and is now a stockholder and director. Associated with others, Mr. Haynie organized the Corsicana Building and Loan Association, of which he has since been vice-president. He is also the owner of a herd of horses near San Angelo. Although our subject began life with comparatively nothing after the war, he now has 1,500 acres of land, 400 acres under cultivation, 160 head of horses, besides his interest in various corporations. In politics he is an ardent Democrat, and has been a member of every State convention since reconstruction days. But, notwithstanding his interest in political matters, he has never sought any political honor. He has been a Master Mason since twenty-one years of age, and is now a member of Rice Lodge, No. 577.
In 1860 Mr. Haynie married Miss Viola E. Sessions, a daughter of I. B. Sessions, of Navarro county. Both Mr. and Mrs. Haynie are members of the Methodist Church, of which the former is a trustee.
*A Memorial and Biographical History of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon Counties, Texas (Chicago, Ill.: Lewis Pub. Co., 1893), pp. 533-34.