An accomplished musician, Haggar left home at the age of eighteen and joined a troupe of travelling players, working as a stage carpenter. In 1870 he married Sarah Walton, daughter of Richard Walton proprietor of a travelling theatre.
Haggar, a talented musician, left his family at age eighteen to become part of a traveling theater company, where he worked as a stagehand. He married Sarah Walton in 1870, the daughter of Richard Walton, who owned a traveling theater.