author

Canniff Haight

1825–1901

Remembered for warm, firsthand writing about early Ontario, this 19th-century Canadian author turned everyday rural life and family history into vivid reading. His best-known work looks back on pioneer customs with the eye of someone who had lived them.

1 Audiobook

Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago

Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago

by Canniff Haight

About the author

Canniff Haight was a Canadian writer whose surviving works show a strong interest in memory, local history, and family lineage. His most widely known book, Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal Recollections and Reminiscences of a Sexagenarian, was published in Toronto in 1885 and presents a personal look at rural Ontario life in an earlier generation.

He also wrote A Genealogical Narrative of the Daniel Haight Family, published in 1899, which reflects his interest in ancestry and Loyalist family history. Library and catalog records identify him as Canniff Haight, 1825–1901.

While detailed biographical information is hard to confirm from readily available reliable sources, his books make his interests clear: preserving the texture of everyday Canadian life and recording family history before it disappeared from living memory.