Moses J. Haines (1827-1898) taught in Biddeford, Saco, and Portland from the 1840s until his retirement in the early 1880s. He was a principal of the Washington Street & Spruce Street schools in Biddeford. He moved to Portland in 1869 and was principal of the Park Street grammar school there, and the first principal of the Butler school in Portland as well. He moved back to Biddeford in 1881, when he retired to a farm on the Pool Road. He was married to Hannah G. Clark of Biddeford.

Haines' teaching style was recorded in his obituary in the Biddeford Daily Journal (6/10/1898): "He was a kindly, even-tempered teacher, severe only when the necessities of the case demanded, and he always inspired the loving respect of his pupils. Though conservative in his methods, he was not by any means an unprogressive pedagogue, for he made the science of teaching a life study, and molded his work to the improvement of the times."