Necrology
Jeffrey Charles Haight '61
May. 18, 1939-Jan. 20, 2022
Jeffrey Charles Haight ’61 died on Jan. 20, 2022, at his home in Nashua, N.H. Born on May 18, 1939, in Schenectady, N.Y., he came to Hamilton from Oneonta (N.Y.) High School. At Hamilton he majored in history and was a member of the Emerson Literary Society. Jeff spent his junior year in Paris, taking courses at the Sorbonne and at the Institut d’études politiques, important preparation for his graduate work. He was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa as a senior.
From Hamilton, he proceeded to the University of Rochester to pursue doctoral studies in history, giving particular attention both to modern European and American history, as well as historiography. During his first year of graduate study, Jeff was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He spent the next two years as a graduate assistant and improved his teaching skills. To support his studies during the academic year 1964-65, he received a New York State Regents Fellowship for advanced graduate study. His doctoral dissertation was “Talleyrand and History,” an examination of historical literature concerning the French foreign minister and diplomat.
While completing his dissertation, Jeff accepted a position at Queens College, City University of New York. He left New York to join the faculty of Windham College in Putney, Vt. In 1972, he married Annie Mahler in Saxtons River, Vt. They had two daughters.
Windham College fell on hard times and closed in 1978. Jeff clearly saw the handwriting on the wall and, being a bibliophile (an obvious accompaniment to his love of history), he purchased an independent bookstore in Concord, N.H., in 1977, operating it until 1994. After a couple of years residing in Concord, his family relocated to the adjacent town of Warner, N.H.
Following the end of his marriage in 1996, Jeff lived for a year in San Diego and Pasadena, Calif., but New Hampshire drew him back, first to Manchester, then Laconia, and finally Nashua. During this period, he met Denise Wagner in 2008. They moved in together in 2012, and she was at his bedside when he died.
By the early 1990s, Jeff had returned to a part-time academic career, teaching as an adjunct faculty member at several institutions. Beginning at New England College he went on to teach at Colby-Sawyer and Franklin Pierce colleges, and at two campuses of the University of New Hampshire system: Durham, and his final post, Manchester, from which he departed in December 2021, a month before his death.
Jeffrey C. Haight is survived by his partner Denise, two daughters, two stepchildren, two grandchildren, and two step-grandchildren.
