Samuel Lewis Hain: Pioneer of Texas Baseball and Customs Surveyor (1854–1941)

Samuel Lewis Williams Hain, railroad executive, pioneer Texas baseball player and manager, Republican politician, and the first surveyor of U.S. Customs at the port of Houston, was born on January 19, 1854, in Tremont, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Henry Clay Hain and Margaret (Williams) Hain and had three siblings: George, Ada, and Alice. After attending a business college in Reading, Pennsylvania, he entered the dry goods trade and began working for a railroad in 1873. While residing in Pennsylvania, Hain was considered a “crack” amateur baseball player.

Upon learning about amateur teams playing in the Houston area, Hain relocated to Houston. According to his own account, he arrived in Houston on December 17, 1880, and soon worked for the (then) Texas and New Orleans Railroad as a freight brakesman. In 1883 he worked in the land department office for the Southern Pacific and Houston and Texas Central railroads. He remained in the railroad business for more than two decades.

Hain’s passion for baseball also led to his joining the Houston Nationals baseball team, one of two amateur clubs in Houston (the other was the Robert E. Lees), and he began playing against other local amateur teams. Hain played left field, third base, and catcher in eleven games during the 1883 season and had a batting average of .240. His brother, George, played eight games and batted .297. Interest in baseball grew after these games which fostered the formation of a league of Texas teams in 1884. This league included teams from Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Galveston, Dallas, and Waco, and its president, J. C. McNealus of Dallas, later became a Texas state senator and the owner of the Dallas team. Houston retained the name “Nationals,” with Hain continuing as both manager and player. Most players were local amateurs, though pitchers and catchers were often recruited from throughout the United States and paid for their expertise. This semi-pro league existed intermittently from 1884 to 1887. Early games were rugged affairs: players caught balls barehanded, without gloves, masks, chest protectors, or shin guards. This first league should not be confused with the Texas League, the first all-professional baseball organization formed in Texas in 1888.

The first all-professional baseball game played in Texas took place in Houston on November 14, 1887. The reigning world champion St. Louis Browns, managed by baseball legend Charles Comiskey, faced off against a team called the “Chicagos,” composed of players from various National League teams. The Browns won the game 10–6. According to a January 8, 1906, account in the Houston Post, Samuel L. Hain was “largely responsible for bringing these teams to Houston, thus introducing professional ball in Texas.” The article credited Hain as the “father of professional baseball” in the state and noted that, “largely through the efforts of Hain,” the Fairgrounds ballpark was built at the head of Travis Street, where many early Houston games were played.

In 1888 the Texas League was founded with Fred W. Turner of Austin as president and Hain serving as the corresponding secretary for the Houston team. This league became one of the longest running and most successful minor leagues in baseball history. While some historians credit John J. McCloskey—player, manager, organizer, umpire—as the "Father of the Texas League,” others credit both McCloskey and Hain as key figures in its founding.

Tributes to Hain’s role in Texas baseball continued for decades. In 1913 Houston Post sports editor John W. Trenton called Hain the “real father of Texas baseball,” as printed in the December 28, 1913, edition of the Post. In 1930 Kern Tips of the Houston Chronicle wrote, “This man is the father of the Texas League, a soubriquet that does not need the punctuation of quotation marks, for it represents the facts.”

Beyond baseball, Hain was active in Republican politics, though he never held any public office. He had unsuccessful runs for Harris County sheriff in 1888 and county tax assessor and collector in 1890. In December 1896 he sought an appointment by Republican president William McKinley, Jr., to the powerful patronage position of collector of customs at Galveston, which also oversaw the port of Houston. In a newspaper interview in the December 13, 1896, issue of the Houston Post, Hain said his Texas friends had encouraged him to make his interest in the position known, and he believed that his past loyalty to the Republican party, including his role as president of the Republican League clubs of Texas, demonstrated his loyalty to the new Republican administration. Hain did not receive this appointment.

A bill introduced in 1906 by Democrat Texas U.S. Congressman John Matthew Moore was passed which made Houston an official U.S. Customs port of entry. With the help of powerful Texas Republican politician Cecil Andrew Lyon, Hain secured President Theodore Roosevelt’s appointment of him to the position of surveyor of customs at Houston on February 25, 1907; he took the oath of office in April. At the time of Hain’s appointment, Houston was a subport under the authority of the collector of customs at Galveston. All ships bound for Houston had to first stop in Galveston to pay tonnage tax, file paperwork, undergo inspections, have imported merchandise appraised, and then pay duties on the imported goods. This was a costly and time-consuming arrangement for Houston importers that hindered the growth of the port of Houston.

Upon his appointment, Hain immediately traveled to Washington, D.C., to advocate Houston’s independence as a port of entry. The U.S. Treasury Department granted this recognition and gave Hain all the powers and responsibilities of a collector of customs and allowed importers and exporters to obtain all U.S. Customs services in Houston. This change was welcomed by Houston businesses but fiercely resisted by the Galveston collector, who refused to acknowledge the new arrangement. The collector of customs at Galveston was  opposed to any change in the agency’s organizational structure because the power, prestige, and salary of the collector was based on port statistics which would decline if ships bypassed Galveston. Even after the Treasury Department issued formal instructions recognizing Houston as a “full-service” customs port, the Galveston collector continued to ignore them.

The first direct entry of imported merchandise at the port of Houston was made by Hyman Levy of the Houston firm Levy Brothers Dry Goods Company on September 27, 1907. Other early imports included camel’s hair from Russia; herring from Norway; Hessian cloth from England; silks, brushes, and mattings from China and Japan; and wines, brandies, embroideries, laces, and kid gloves from France. In addition to U.S. Customs laws, Surveyor Hain began enforcing environmental and navigation laws and lobbied for navigation lights along the Houston Ship Channel. His efforts reignited the longstanding rivalry between Houston and Galveston. In 1913 Galveston officials successfully reversed Houston’s independent status, returning it to a subport under the supervision of the collector of customs at Galveston, effective July 1, 1913.

Hain was forced to resign his position with U.S. Customs on June 30, 1913, at the request of the administration due to the reorganization of U.S. Customs. Upon his departure, Houston importers presented Hain with a loving cup inscribed: “To Samuel Lewis Hain, First Surveyor United States Customs 1907–1913, a Token of Esteem from the Importers of Houston.” Hain was later appointed to the position of postmaster at Harrisburg.

Hain was praised as one of the Houston’s most dedicated civic leaders, as evidenced in the April 5, 1910, edition of the Houston Post in a profile about prominent businessmen: “Among the residents of Houston who deserve commendation and praise for the able manner in which they have been striving during the past several years to make this city one of the most thriving and metropolitan centers of the South none are more worthy of laudable notice than our surveyor of customs, Mr. Samuel Louis [sic] Hain.” After his retirement from railroad and government service, Hain pursued ventures in real estate and oil in Texas.

In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill that resulted in the reorganization of U.S. Customs and the abolishment of the politically-appointed positions of collector of customs. As a result, a U.S. Customs regional headquarters was established in Houston to supervise all operations throughout Southeast Texas, including those in Galveston.

Sam Hain married Georgia Gearhart on June 22, 1885, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  The couple had three children: Martha, Louise, and Clarence. Georgia died at the age of thirty-nine in 1900. Hain died at the age of eighty-seven on April 30, 1941, at the Elks National Home in Bedford, Virginia. His body was returned to Houston for burial at Forest Park Cemetery. His obituary in the Houston Post reported that Hain and John J. McCloskey were responsible for “keeping interest in a Texas league alive and finally saw the circuit blossom into one of the top minor leagues in baseball.”