Stephen Nelson Haskell was born in Oakham, Massachusetts on April 22, 1833. In 1848, when he was just 15 years old, he became a Christian, joining the Congregational Church. In 1850, Haskell married Mary Howe. Mary was an invalid and about twenty years older than Stephen. In 1853, at the age of 20, he was preaching part-time for the First-day Adventists, while also making and selling soap. Later that year, he received a tract titled “Elihu on the Sabbath”. He accepted the message in the tract and began to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.
In 1869, in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, he assisted his wife and several ladies to form the Vigilant Missionary Society, which was dedicated to the distrubtion of tracts. This was the forerunner of the present Adventist Book Centers.
Between 1854-1870, Haskell worked as a self-supporting preacher within the Seventh-day Adventist movement in New England. He was ordained as a minister in 1870 with James White, J. N. Andrews and J. H. Waggoner officiating. The same year he was elected as president of the New England Conference, which he served for the next 17 years.
During his years of service he was president of several conferences. At one time he was president of the California and Maine Conferences at the same time. He also founded South Lancaster Academy (now Atlantic Union College) in 1882.
Stephen Haskell also did much missionary work overseas. In 1882 he helped organize the first European Council.
In 1885 he was in charge of the first group of Seventh– day Adventist Missionaries in opening the Adventist work in Australia and New Zealand, which included starting the Echo Publishing Company (now Signs Publishing Company).
In June 1887, Haskell, along with three Bible workers, opened the Adventist work in London, England, organizing the first Adventist church there. From 1889 to 1890 he made a round-the-world tour on behalf of Adventist missionary work, visiting numerous locations in Europe, Africa, India, China, Japan and Australia. On that trip Haskell baptized the first Seventh-day Adventists in both China and Japan.
Steven Haskell had a long-lasting friendship with James and Ellen White, dating back to the late 1850s. Ellen White wrote more letters to Haskell than to any other church leader. Haskell was asked to preach the sermon at the Battle Creek funeral service for Ellen White in 1915.
After his first wife died in 1894, in 1896, Ellen White invited Haskell to come to Australia to teach at the newly opened Avondale School for Christian Workers (now Avondale College). It was there, in 1897, that he met and married his second wife, Hetty Hurd, a Bible worker. Stephen and Hetty did evangelistic and Bible work in Australia and the United States.
In his later years he was still very active in the work of the Lord. In 1901 he worked in New York City, organizing the first African-American church there. In 1905 he went west to the Loma Linda and San Bernardino area. In 1908 the California Conference again elected him to serve as president, a position he held until 1911. Haskell now “retired” at the age of 79.
Yet, he still did volunteer work. In 1911 he led out in the temperance work and also began printing books for the blind (1912). He also assisted in the development of the White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles (1916).
At the age of 77, In 1910, Elder Haskell was still preaching solid sermons that people wanted to hear. At a series of talks at the California camp meeting his wife, Hetty, recalled, “In the early morning meetings he gave Bible studies on the Spirit of the Lord, and it seemed as if every man, woman, and child on the ground was present at these meetings.”
During his lifetime, Stephen Haskell also wrote several books that continue to be reprinted: The Story of Daniel the Prophet (1901), The Story of the Seer of Patmos (1904), The Cross and Its Shadow (1914) and Bible Handbook (1919).
Stephen Haskell passed away on October 9, 1922, at Paradise Valley Sanitarium in National City, Calif. He was buried next to his first wife, Mary, in Napa, Calif., with A. G. Daniells, R. F. Cottrell and J. L. McElhany presiding at the service.