My Genealogy Hound

Thomas W. Baird, manufacturers’ agent, Little Rock, Ark., has been a resident of this city for the past nine years, although his actual residence in the State covers a period of about twelve years. He was born in Boonville, Cooper County, Mo., and remained there until ten years of age. His parents were Thomas W. and Mary A. (Carter) Baird, of Erie, Penn., and Danville, Ky., respectively. The former, who was a prominent steam-boatman on the Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio Rivers, died in 1853, while the mother is still living at the age of seventy-nine, in Louisville, Ky. When ten years of age, Thomas W. accompanied his parents to the vicinity of Louisville, Ky., where he received a fair English education, and after his father’s death, went into the steamboat business. He also had an uncle, Capt. William Baird, whose name was famous on western waters in early days, he being commander of the first iron steamboat built for traffic in the rivers of that section, the “Valley Forge.” After six years of river life, young Baird entered the employ of the Adams’ Express Company, where he remained during the Civil War, traveling through Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. He next moved to Bowling Green, Ky., and embarked in the hardware business, continuing in the line for ten years, after which he was engaged by the Blymeyer Manufacturing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, to travel for them, his territory lying through Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, and in the winter of 1880 he located in Little Rock. Mr. Baird was married on May 7, 1863, to Miss M. P. Huddleston, of St. Louis, by whom he has had three children: Harry P. (with his father in the capacity of shipping clerk), Irene and Mamie. Mr. and Mrs. Baird are both members of the Christ Episcopal Church. In secret orders Mr. Baird has been a life-long Mason.