From "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902. Typed by Laurie Birks Dean. pp. 537-539 JOHN BAIRD, who passed from this life on March 3, 1901, spent his entire life on a farm in Ohio county, West Virginia. The family has long been established in this country, his grandfather, John Baird, coming from County Tyrone, Ireland, to Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, about 1778. While there he took the oath of allegiance, as follows: "I do herby certify that John Baird of Cumberland, Hamilton Township, hath voluntarily taken and subscribed the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity as directed by an Act of General Assembly of Pennsylvania, passed the thirteenth day of June, A. D. 1777. Witness my Hand and Seal, the 29th Day of May, A. D. 1778. "No. 114. (L. S.) Andrew Long." He moved to Virginia where he bought 400 acres of land in 1785. The deed was made out at Richmond, Virginia, and signed by Edmund Randolph, governor of the commonwealth of Virginia. He was married in 1790 to Jane Hosick. They had eight children, namely: John, Jane, George, Eleanor, Elizabeth, William, Josiah and Joseph. John Baird, son of John Baird, the first to come to this country, was born in 1792. He removed to Ohio in his twenty-second year, and there married. In 1840, he went to Des Moines, Iowa, where he remained until his removal, to Kirksville, Missouri. He died there in 1865, at the age of seventy-three years. He was the father of 12 children, but only five survived him. The following is taken from his obituary: "In theology, as was his father, so was he, a Presbyterian of the John Knox school, sound and unyielding in the faith once delivered to the Saints. He was the only ruling elder of the Presbyterian church of this place, an office the duties of which he discharged with a deep sense of his unworthiness and inability, and which owing to his advanced age he wished to decline. He had repeatedly read the Bible through in his life time, and still delighted at life's close to lean upon it as a sure word of prophecy, and died as a summer cloud dieth. 'Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.'" Jane Baird was married to John Beall and settled in Belmont county, Ohio, where they reared a large family. She lived to be almost a century old. Eleanor Baird was born February 8, 1801, and married James Jamison, of Dallas, West Virginia. She died in 1863, leaving no children. Elizabeth Baird was born January 27, 1803, and married William Miller, of Ohio county; after his death, she removed to Licking county, Ohio; she had no children. William Baird was born March 5, 1806, and removed to Pataskala, Ohio, where he died in 1889, aged eighty-three years. He had two daughters, one of whom survived him. Josiah Baird, father of the subject of this sketch, was born March 8, 1807. His whole life was spent on the home place. May 7, 1835, he married Rosannah Merchant. Her father, Reuben Merchant, who came to this country from Northfield, England, in 1788, married Polly Gaitor on August 18, 1795, and they had two sons and six daughters. He was a cabinetmaker, and owned the Black Diamond coal mine near Wheeling Creek. Josiah Baird and his wife Rosannah had five children, as follows: John, whose name heads this sketch; Joseph, born October 22, 1838, and died September 26, 1848; Mary, born March 13 1841, married Dr. A. Allison and is now living near Martin's Ferry, Ohio, her husband having died in 1898; Jane, born October 4, 1844, and now living on the home place; and James Hervey, born April 22, 1847, and died March 26, 1850. The mother died September 14, 1848. Josiah Baird was married again in 1850 to Elizabeth Chambers, a daughter of Joseph Chambers, whose father, James Hamilton Chambers, came to this country from County Derry, Ireland, about 1790, settled in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and moved not long after to Pleasant Valley, five miles east of Wheeling. James Hamilton Chambers had three sons and two daughters, namely: James; John; Joseph; Isabella, who married Robert Hay and raised a family of nine or 10 children, living in or about Pittsburg; and Jane, who married a Mr. Patterson in Muskingum county, Ohio. Joseph Chambers married Rebecca Beall and had seven children, four sons and three daughters: James P., a farmer and stock raiser living near West Alexander, Pennsylvania; Joseph, living in West Alexander; Mary and John, deceased; Jane, living near Bethany, West Virginia; and William Beall, formerly a dentist of Newark, Ohio. Josiah and Elizabeth (Chambers) Baird had three children: William C., born March 9, 1852; Rebecca Ellen, born October 28, 1853; and Josiah Wallace, a record of whose life appears elsewhere in this work. Mrs. Baird died September 23, 1859. William C. Baird is living on the home place. He was married in 1878 to Margaret E. McCulloch. They have seven children: Samuel McCulloch, Laura Elizabeth, Rebecca Wilson, Bertha Ellen, Josiah Beall, Katherine Lauk and Margaret Louise. John Baird, the oldest son of Josiah and Rosannah (Merchant) Baird, was born February 6, 1836, and spent his entire life, as did his father, on the farm where he was born. He was an enthusiastic farmer and aimed to be an intelligent one. He always took an active part in Farmers' Institutes. He was never a very strong man, but always a very busy one. He took great interest in growing fine wool, was the first to introduce the bronze turkey into this part of the country, and also among the first to introduce Italian bees. He took great pride in thoroughbred stock. In the latter part of his life he became much absorbed in fruit growing, and the fine fruit in great variety now grown on his farm goes to prove that he was a success. He was a member of the old Stone Presbyterian church, where his grandfather was one of the first elders. He was president of the board of trustees of that church for twenty years, and taught the Bible class in the Sabbath-school for twenty-six years. No little thing ever kept him from his place. If duty called, he was there. He was married in 1865 to Mary Louisa Nicoll, a daughter of William Ming Nicoll, of Wheeling, West Virginia, and one daughter was born but died in infancy. Mrs. Baird died November 26, 1876.