Santa Cruz County Biographies

WILLIAM BAIRD

Submitted by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


        William Baird was born at Waitsfield, Vermont, August 6, 1843. He was 
reared on a farm and educated in the public schools of Waitsfield.
        When the war broke out, Mr. Baird was in his seventeenth year, but, 
fired with patriotism and filled with a spirit of adventure, he, with a younger 
brother, ran away from home and enlisted in the army. Three times he did this, 
his family each time securing his release, as he was under age.
        He went to New York to learn the blacksmith's trade. While working at 
the forge a scale from a piece of iron seriously injured one of his eyes. He 
then bought a farm, which he conducted for a year and a half.
        April 4, 1868, he landed in San Francisco, and packed his blankets to 
Ellsworth Mill, and got a job chopping wood, and soon afterward obtained a 
position as " swamper." Mr. Baird has been working in the redwoods ever since, 
and by his knowledge of the business, industry, and good management, has 
acquired the nucleus of a competence. He began this work at $40 a month. He is 
now contracting to deliver logs at the Mill and making several thousand dollars 
a year.
        In the spring of 1882 he took a contract from the Santa Clara Valley 
Mill and Lumber Company, and later was employed by Mr. Dougherty at a salary of 
$100 per month. After working a month and a half his employer voluntarily 
informed him that his salary was increased to $125 a month. He remained here 
four years. He worked four years for F. A. Hihn, as logging boss, at a salary of 
$150 a month. In March, 1890, he formed a partnership with James Daugherty, and 
took a contract to get out twenty-two million feet of logs in two years. He is 
engaged in this work now.
        Mr. Baird went East in 1870, returning the following year. December 24, 
1881, he was married to Johanna Sheehan. They have three boys; Willis A., Walter 
C., and Hugh J., aged nine, six, and two respectively.
 
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.-  E. S. Harrison, 
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891