Baird, Nathaniel T.

BAIRD, GILLESPIE, JOHNSON

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 2/14/2003 at 20:27:38

Source: "The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated" published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.

NATHANIEL T. BAIRD.

N. T. Baird, whose home is on section eleven, DeWitt township, is one of the most successful and prosperous farmers of that locality. He dates his residence in this county from November, 1866, and during this time he has been prominently identified with her agricultural interests. He was born in Jefferson township, Guernsey county, Ohio, May 31, 1837, a son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Gillespie) Baird, both natives of Pennsylvania. In 1811 his paternal grandfather, John Baird, removed with his family to Ohio, becoming one of the first settlers of Guernsey county, where he cleared and improved a farm. There Joseph Baird grew to manhood and was married. He carried on farming there until 1870, when he came to Iowa, and spent his last years with our subject, dying here in June, 1877. His wife passed away a few years previous.

Our subject passed the days of his nativity, and assisted in the operation of the home farm until 1859, when he went to Warren county, Illinois, and worked by the month near Monmouth until after the inauguration of the Civil war. In August, 1861, he enlisted for three years as a private in Company C, Thirty-sixth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. His first battle was that of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, after which his regiment marched toward Little Rock, and then back to a point near Batesville, Missouri. He participated in the engagements at Cape Girardeau, Hamburg Landing and Corinth, besides numerous skirmishes. While driving a mule team in Kentucky Mr. Baird was thrown from the back of one of those animals and had his shoulder and arm broken and chest crushed, which permanently disabled him. After about a month spent in the hospital at Louisville, Kentucky, he was honorably discharged for disability, December 5, 1862. He spent that winter in Ohio, and having somewhat recovered, he again went to Illinois the following spring. He was still unable to work, but was employed as overseer on a farm two seasons. During that time he bought a horse, which he traded to his advantage, and during the two seasons he remained there he made quite a business of trading horses.

After operating rented land for two years in Illinois, in 1866 Mr. Baird came to Clinton county, Iowa, and bought one hundred and twenty acres in Berlin township, a small portion of which had been broken and a shanty erected thereon. He went in debt about eight hundred dollars for this place. He fenced, tilled and otherwise improved the farm, and built a good house and barn, besides adding to it a tract of forty acres. Renting this place in 1872, he purchased a forty-acre tract where he now resides, and at once turned his attention to its improvement. He has since bought an adjoining eighty acres, and another farm of one hundred and seventy acres, so that he now owns four hundred and fifty acres of valuable land in this county. He previously raised and fed considerable stock, but now gives his attention principally to looking after his farms. He commenced life here without capital, and by his untiring industry, good management and indomitable perseverance has acquired a handsome competence.

Mr. Baird was married in Louisa county, Iowa, in 1870, to Miss Nancy A. Johnson, a native of Monroe county, Tennessee, and a daughter of Hamilton Johnson, a substantial farmer who came to Iowa at an early day and settled in Louisa county, where Mrs. Baird was reared. Unto our subject and his wife were born four children, but Ollie died at the age of six months, Myrtle Belle when about four years of age, and Oscar when in his third year. The only one now living is Herbert J., who has taken up the study of law and intends making that profession his life work.

Since casting his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 Mr. Baird has supported every Republican candidate for that office, but has never cared for political honors. He is a friend of education, and efficiently served as a member of the school board for some years. He and his wife are earnest and active members of the DeWitt Presbyterian church, of which he is one of the elders, and they are highly respected and esteemed by all who know them.