Our Arklahoma Heritage: Brom in 'Log Town' in 1842, a Civil War captain was a cog in the settlement of Latimer County

CTUAL PHOTO

William Graham Baird was born on March 20, 1842, in Old Logtown , which later became Fort Smith

His parents ranked among the settlement’s earliest civilian residents when the place was still a rough cluster of log cabins near the military post. His mother, Margaret Baird, born in Ohio in October 1810, had settled in Fort Smith in 1841 (some accounts say 1838) when it was little more than a village.

A lifelong Presbyterian and one of the charter members of the First Presbyterian Church there, she remained in Fort Smith until her death on November 30, 1893, at the home of her daughter. She outlived most of those who had shared the hard early years of frontier life.

His father’s name is not recorded in surviving accounts

Baird received his education at St. Ann’s Academy in Fort Smith.

in 1861 he enlisted as a corporal in Company C, Arkansas Volunteers (Home Guard, King’s Brigade). Of the 125 men in the unit, only two survived the war. He rose to the rank of captain and in 1863 transferred to the staff of General James F. Fagan as aide-de-camp. He later served in Indian Territory on the staff of General Jackson McCurtain.

Near the war’s end, while stationed in the Kiamichi Mountains, he rode to Doaksville and learned that Lee had surrendered two months earlier. His command disbanded without formal surrender. He served throughout in the Trans-Mississippi Department.

Baird and Mary Jane “Molly” DeHart, born September 10, 1842, had been childhood neighbors across the street in the small log settlement of Old Logtown. They maintained correspondence during the war and married on January 18, 1865, in Paraclifta, Arkansas, during one of his furloughs.

Baird wore his Confederate coat and vest; local women sewed trousers of matching color overnight so he could stand in uniform. Molly remained briefly with her parents before joining him.

After the war the couple lived first at Shawnee town on the Red River in the Choctaw Nation, where their eldest child was born. They attempted business at Wheelock but faced severe hardship and danger, leading to a temporary return to a farm near Sugarloaf Mountain in Arkansas.

In 1868 they reentered Indian Territory and established a trading post at Mountain Station.

After three years in Colorado, they returned and settled near the future site of Wilburton, first at Limestone and later at Boiling Springs. Baird partnered for a time in business with J. T. McCurtain.

When a post office opened at Boiling Springs in 1884, Baird named it Ola after his daughter and became its first postmaster. Mail arrived twice weekly from Fort Smith via Brazil and Red Oak. When that office closed and a new one was established at Wilburton, he moved there and served as the town’s first postmaster.

He operated as one of Wilburton’s earliest merchants, later served as the first city treasurer, and remained active in local and county affairs. He helped organize the Presbyterian church in Wilburton soon after settling there around 1890 and contributed to the building of its first structure. A Mason since 1863, he held charter membership in the Wilburton lodge and was granted honorary status in 1922.

Baird and Molly celebrated their golden wedding anniversary on January 18, 1915.

He died at his home in Wilburton on July 18, 1926 (some notices give July 19), at age 84, after an illness of about two weeks. His wife Mary Jane survived him until September 3, 1932.

Baird was buried in Wilburton City Cemetery.

His ife spanned the raw frontier settlement of Old Logtown, Confederate service in the Trans-Mississippi, repeated movements into Indian Territory, trading-post existence, and the founding years of a railroad town in the Choctaw Nation.

His name remains embedded in the early written history of Wilburton and Latimer County.