O. H. Haynes, Sr.

Oscar Henry Haynes, Sr., or O. H. Haynes, Sr. (September 20, 1888 – April 18, 1969), was from 1933 to 1952 the Democratic sheriff of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. A long-time Minden resident, he was  the father of subsequent Sheriff O. H. Haynes, Jr., and the grandfather of Louisiana State University football star Fred Haynes, who played for the Tigers in Baton Rouge prior to 1968.  

Haynes was born in the village of Shongaloo in central Webster Parish, the oldest of eight children of John O. Haynes (1848-1918), a native of Georgia, and his second wife, the former Julia Ann Butts (1862-1935). J. O. Haynes had a previous wife, the former Mary Ann Burns (1847-1885), a native of Arkansas whom he married in neighboring Claiborne Parish prior to the creation of Webster Parish. Mary Ann died a month after giving birth to the couple's ninth child. In 1887, J. O. married Julia, who the next year gave birth to Oscar Henry Haynes, Sr. J. O. Haynes hence had seventeen children by the two marriages.^[1]

Oscar Henry Haynes married the former Mary Lynn Burns (February 5, 1889 — February 7, 1971), the daughter of Andrew Jackson and Isabelle Burns. The couple had four children, J. Y. Haynes, Cleone Haynes Hodges (1909-2012), Delmus Wells Haynes (1918-1919), who died prior to his second birthday, and the youngest, Oscar Henry Haynes, Jr. (1920-1996).^[2] For more than three decades, Cleone Hodges, who lived to be 103, was a professor of health, physical education, and recreation at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.^[3]   Haynes was a great-uncle by marriage of Henry Burns, a Republican state representative who represented Bossier Parish from 2008 to 2016.

1933

Haynes was a deputy under Sheriff Arthur Montgomery Hough (1873-1933), who died of influenza early in his second term of office on May 7, 1933, a week after a devastating tornado struck the city of Minden, the parish seat of government.^[4] A special election, all-Democratic, was called to replace Sheriff Hough. The senior Haynes won with 50.8 percent in an 80-percent turnout of registered voters. The runner-up in the race, with 22.2 percent, was Louie A. Jones (1900-1965),^[5] the assistant superintendent of the Louisiana State Police who had earlier been a personal bodyguard of Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr., and subsequently the warden at Angola in West Feliciana Parish. After his failure to become sheriff, Jones lived thereafter in Baton Rouge.^[6]    Another candidate, J. D. Huckaby, was the president of the Webster Parish Police Jury, the parish governing body akin to the county commission in other states. James Bryant Batton (1880-1939),^[7]  a previous deputy sheriff too and the then Minden police chief, finished last in the race with 7.8 percent of the ballots cast; he won a plurality only in his native Dubberly in south Webster Parish.^[6] J. Bryant Batton was the father of later political figures, J. D. Batton, who unseated the senior Haynes for sheriff in 1952, and Jack Batton, a longstanding city council member who served a term from 1978 to 1982 as the mayor of Minden.^[8]

1936 and 1940

In 1936, Haynes defeated his intraparty challenger, John Franklin Adams (1880-1954), a Sarepta farmer and real estate agent, 60 to 40 percent. In 1940 in a nearly identical outcome, Haynes defeated Jesse L. Boucher (1912-2004), later a well-known developer and the mayor of Springhill from 1958 to 1962. Boucher was the father of two subsequent actresses, Sherry Boucher, formerly married to George Peppard, and Jessica Boucher-Ford. In an advertisement in the weekly Minden Herald, prior to the primary election, the senior Haynes described himself as "fearless in performance of his duties, favoring neither friend nor foe ... clear, progressive, yet economical [in the] administration of the office ... a capable, courteous, courageous enforcer of the law." Haynes polled 3,420 votes (59.8 percent) to Boucher's 2,300 (40.2 percent).^[9]

1944

In 1944, Haynes defeated two intra-party rivals, T. E. Bailes and Elisha W. "Lige" Newberry (1892-1960), Haynes' brother-in-law who resigned as a deputy to run for sheriff himself. Mrs. Newberry was the former Ella Mae Haynes (1991-1945), the sister of the senior Sheriff Haynes. Newberry claimed that his brother-in-law had failed to enforce prohibition laws and had permitted bootleggers and "honky-tonks" to operate within view of law enforcement. Newberry called bootleggers "agents of the Devil [who] will flourish again ... and your youngsters will be contaminated." The senior Haynes, however, had ordered a crackdown on saloons and roadhouses selling to minor or during early morning hours of Sunday, when bars were shut down. A member of the Methodist denomination, Haynes was lauded for his enforcement of prohibition by the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Minden. In the 1944 race, Haynes prevailed narrowly with 3,167 votes (50.5 percent) to Newberry's 2,744 (43.8 percent) and Bailes' 356 (5.7 percent). He hence avoided a runoff contest with his brother-in-law by sixty-seven votes. Haynes was ill at the end of the race. Four months later, Newberry's son and Haynes' nephew, J. O. Newberry, who carried the same initials as his maternal grandfather, J. O. Haynes, and had worked in the West Texas oil fields about Levelland near Lubbock before he joined the United States Army, died of wounds received in Italy during World War II.^[10]

Under the senior Sheriff Haynes, his son and chief deputy, O. H. Haynes, Jr., and five other men, including Minden Police Chief Benjamin Garey Gantt (1890-1948), were indicted for the lynching of John Cecil Jones and the mortal beating of Albert Harris, Jr., two African Americans. Harris was a teenager arrested for alleged trespassing in the yard of a white woman; Jones, a cousin of Harris, was a corporal who had been honorably discharged from the United States Army during the war. The junior Haynes released both to a mob at the former parish jail in Minden, and the pair met their brutal deaths on Dorcheat Bayou near Minden. The defendants were found not guilty by an all-white jury in the Shreveport-based United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Jones' hanging was the last post-World War II lynching in Louisiana.^[11]

1948

There was little indication that the lynching and torture death impacted the senior Sheriff Haynes politically during a time of rigid segregationist policies. In 1948, Haynes, as he had in 1944, barely missed being placed in a runoff with Elisha Newberry, who again challenged his brother-in-law; by this time Mrs. Newberry had died. Haynes received 4,009 votes (50.4 percent); Newberry, who vowed "fair, impartial law enforcement," finished with 3,016 votes (37.9 percent). A third contender, Chief Benjamin Garey Gantt, trailed with 658 votes (8.3 percent), and died of a heart attack not long after the balloting and before the trial of those indicted for the Jones and Harris deaths. A fourth candidate, Waymon Neely (1904-1983) of Sarepta, polled 277 ballots (3.4 percent).^[12]

1952

The senior Haynes held the sheriff's position for nineteen years. In Louisiana, the sheriff is the collector of property taxes and also enforces criminal law outside the municipalities and is often the most powerful politician in the parish.^[13]   Haynes was ultimately unseated by 43 votes in a Democratic runoff election held on February 19, 1952, 5,444 (50.2 percent) to J. D. Batton's 5,401 (49.8 percent).^[14] In that same election Robert F. Kennon, a judge from Minden, handily defeated Carlos Spaht, a judge from Baton Rouge, in the race to succeed Earl Kemp Long, Huey Long's younger brother, as governor.^[15] In his 1956 reelection held in conjunction with the gubernatorial comeback by Earl Long, J. D. Batton turned back the 67-year-old Haynes's attempt to return to office.^[16]

1964

In 1964, O. H. Haynes, Jr., unseated Batton, who completed twelve years in office.^[17] When Batton tried to unseat Haynes in 1967, he finished with just under 42 percent of the vote.^[18]  

J. O. Haynes is interred in the Haynes Cemetery in Shongaloo. Oscar Henry Haynes, Sr., along with his wife, son O. H. Haynes, Jr., and his wife, the former Freddie Louise Walker (1924-2017), and grandsons Fred Haynes, an LSU football star from 1966 to 1968, and Jerry Wayne Haynes, Sr. (1952-2014), are interred at the historic Minden Cemetery.^[19] From 1933 to 1980, the office of Webster Parish sheriff was hence held by three men from two families, neither of which have continuing political impact. 

• Clarence D. Wiley