Fresno County Biographies

Alfred Baird

Submitted by Sally Kaleta, December, 2006

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://calarchives4u.com/

These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit 
or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations 
desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain 
the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of 
the submitter. All persons donating to this site retain the rights to 
their own work.

	Alfred Baird, a resident of Big Dry Creek, Fresno County, 
California, was born in Ohio, November 16, 1829. The Buckeye State continued to 
be the scene of his childhood and youth until he reached the age of eighteen 
years. He then went to Iowa and settled on the frontier of that State, where he 
engaged in carpentering. For twelve years he pursued this occupation with 
varying success. The year 1859 found him en route to California, making the trip 
with ox teams and horses and taking with him his wife and two children. Three 
years previous to this time he was married to Miss Lydia K. Beard, a native of 
Indiana, who, with her parents, settled on the Iowa frontier about the time Mr. 
Baird took up his abode there. The journey across the plains consumed the entire 
summer and proved an uneventful one. Arrived in California, Mr. Baird tarried a 
short time at a point near Visalia and finally settled down on King's river, 
Fresno County; here he has lived since the fall of 1859. The remarkable changes 
that have taken place, the rapid development of the soil, and the birth and 
growth of Fresno have all been witnessed by him. His early reminiscences of life 
in the San Joaquin Valley are interesting in the extreme. The year of his 
arrival here found him engaged in gardening on King's River, and prosperity 
attended him for two years, when the flood came and he lost his whole place. He 
then procured some sheep on shares and also engaged in the cattle business, 
which he continued with excellent success for eighteen years. Mr. Baird ascribed 
his success to his sheep investment and to the fact that his stock had the 
entire public domain to run over. He sold out his sheep interests in 1879, but 
still holds his ranch property, consisting of 8,000 acres of land, scattered 
through Tulare as well as Fresno County. He resides at Big Dry Creek, twenty 
miles east of Fresno, on what is known as Poverty Ranch, the ranch being so 
named on account of a weed growing in abundance near his place called poverty 
weed. In his agricultural pursuits Mr. Baird has also met with eminent success. 
During his long residence in this county he has assumed his share of work and 
responsibility in politics. He has been a Republican candidate for Assemblyman, 
and on two occasions for County Treasurer, never, however, being elected, owing 
to the Democratic ascendancy in the district. His family of four children 
consists of Benjamin M., a resident of Visalia; Alice, now Mrs. Dr, Reid of 
Tulare; L. E. Baird, living in Oregon; and Florence G., now Mrs. R. E. Keiler.

Source: "The Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno, Tulare 
and Kern, California," Lewis Publ. Co., 1892, p. 305.