Charles Washington Baird (1828 - 1887)

Born 28 Aug 1828 in Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey, United States

Died 10 Feb 1887 at age 58 in Rye, Westchester, New York, United States

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Biography

1850, Sep 4. U.S. Federal Census. The Baird family living in the town of Yonkers, Westchester County, New York. Head of household Robert Baird, age 51, Clergyman, Real Estate $6000, born PA; [wife] Fermine, age 45, born NY; [son] Robert B., age 24, clerk in bank, born NJ; [son] Charles W., age 22, student, born NJ; [son] Henry M., age 18, student, born PA; [son] Edward P., age 12, born France; [son] William C., age 7, born Switzerland; Livinia C. Reton, age 47, born NY; Mary A. Frances, age 20, born England; Mary McAvoy, age 15, born Ireland; Christopher Nulty, age 30, laborer, born Ireland.^[1]

1870, Aug 22. U.S. Federal Census. The Baird family living in Rye, Westchester County, New York. Head of household Charles W. Baird, age 40, Minister of Gospel, born NY; [wife] Margaret, age 30, keeping house, born NY; [daughter] Ella, age 5; [son] Robert, age 1; Maggie Feefe, age 28, domestic, born Ireland.^[2]

1880, Jun 12. U.S. Federal Census. The Baird family living in Rye, Westchester County, New York. Head of household Charles W. Baird, age 51, Clergyman, born NJ; wife Margaret E., age 43, keeping house, born NY; daughter Eliza, age 14, at school, born NY; son Robert, age 11, at school, born NY.^[3]

Obituary, The Rev. Dr. Charles W. Baird.

The Rev. Dr. Charles W. Baird, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Rye, died yesterday from paralysis. He was stricken down last Saturday and remained unconscious most of the time until his death. Dr. Baird was born at Princeton, N. J., on August 28, 1828, and was graduated at the University of the City of New-York in 1848, and at Union Theological Seminary in 1852. He was ordained for the ministry, and in 1852-’54 was the American Chaplain at Rome, Italy. In 1859-’61 he was the minister at the Reformed Church on Bergen Hill, Brooklyn, and since May 9, 1861, he had been the pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Rye, Westchester County. Dr. Baird, wrote “Some Historical Sketches,” published in 1855; “A Book of Public Prayers;” “A History of the Bedford Church, 1882; “A History of the Huguenot Emigration to America,” in two volumes; also “A History of the Towns of Rye and Harrison,” in 1885.^[4]

Died

Baird—At Rye, N.Y., on Thursday, February 10, 1887, the Rev. Charles Washington Baird, D.D., son of the late Rev. Dr. Robert and Fermine Baird, and pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Rye, in the 59th year of his age. Funeral services in the Presbyterian Church, Rye, on Monday, February 14, at 2 o’clock p.m. Carriages will be in waiting at the deport on the arrival of the train leaving the Grand Central Station, New-York (N.Y., N.H. and H.R.R.), at 1 o’clock p.m.^[4]

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Charles Washington Baird, the second son of Robert and Fermine Du Buisson Baird, was born in Princeton, N. J., on the 28th of August, 1828. His father was a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, widely known and greatly beloved both in Europe and in America because of his untiring and self-sacrificing labors in connection with many important religious and philanthropic enterprises. His mother, who was of French Huguenot extraction, was a woman in whom deep and unaffected piety was combined with great refinement and singular sweetness and force of character.
Until his seventh year his parents resided in this country, first in Princeton and afterwards in Philadelphia. In 1835 Rev. Dr. Robert Baird accepted a commission to visit Europe in the interest of the effort then for the first time made by American Protestants, to evangelize the Roman Catholic countries of the continent, and the greater part of the next eight or nine years was spent by his family in France and Switzerland. For six years their home was in Paris, and for two years in Geneva. This long sojourn in foreign lands was not without a very distinct effect in influencing the intellectual development of the young Charles Baird. Not only did it tend to broaden his general culture, but it enabled him in particular to master several of the languages of modern Europe, and to lay the foundation of an acquaintance with the history and literatures of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, which at a later date proved of great utility, being indeed an indispensable condition of much of the original literary research in which he subsequently engaged.
It was during his stay in Europe that he was called to pass through the severe discipline of suffering. An attack of inflammatory rheumatism, incurred in the spring of 1841, brought on an affection of the heart so rapid and violent in its character as for a time to threaten his life. For many months his health continued to be very precarious ; nor indeed did he ever recover the vigor of constitution he had previously enjoyed.
No doubt this experience was blessed of God to bring him to a fuller realization of his spiritual needs. From his earliest years he had exhibited great sensitiveness of conscience, together with deep reverence for the Holy Scriptures and their teachings. Now he came to a distinct apprehension and acceptance of the Gospel plan of salvation, and embraced the Lord Jesus Christ with a faith that knew no doubt or wavering to the end of his life. His entire frame of mind became evidently spiritual. He began at once to seek opportunities for benefiting those around him; he instituted prayer - meetings among his young associates, and he strove by direct conversation to induce them to accept the Saviour whom he had himself chosen to be the guide and master of his thoughts and actions. Shortly after his return to the United States he made a public profession of his faith in Christ, and united early in 1844 with the Sixth Street Presbyterian Church, New York City, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. Horace Eaton, D.D., subsequently of Palmyra.
The Gospel ministry was the life-work upon which his thoughts and aspirations centred. No other occupation seemed attractive to him. Yet for a time there was little prospect that his bodily health would permit him to carry out his cherished hope. For several years the close application and confinement of the school were out of the question. Meanwhile, however, his time was not misspent. Not only did his reading include a wide range of literature, but he employed his pen to good purpose, assisting his father by translations of important treatises from the French language into the English, and exercising to some extent a poetical ability which he had inherited from his mother. Taking advantage of his improved health, he prepared privately for college, and in the year 1846 entered the junior class of the University of the City of New York. Under the instruction of such eminent men as Chancellor Theodore Frelinghuysen and Professors Taylor Lewis, E. A. Johnson, John W. Draper, Caleb S. Henry, and others, he enjoyed the highest advantages this country then afforded, and the associations which he formed with his teachers and with his fellow - students were a theme to which he ever after recurred with manifest gratification. The character and services of Mr. Frelinghuysen in particular were reviewed by him with the appreciative affection of an attached pupil thirty-four years after graduation, in the oration which he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society. On Commencement Day, in June, 1848, his part in the public exercises was the rendering of a poem of his own composition on the theme of "Labor."
In September, 1849, he entered the Union Theological Seminary, New York. Here he pursued a full course of theological study, under Dr. Henry White, in Dogmatical Theology, Dr. Edward Robinson and Mr. Turner, in Biblical Exegesis, Dr. Henry B. Smith, in Church History, and Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, in Pastoral Theology and Homiletics. He graduated in the spring of 1852, and, after licensure by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, sailed for Europe in the month of September, to become chaplain of the American Chapel in the city of Rome, under the care of the American and Foreign Christian Union. Here his ministry extended over a period of two years. During his vacation in the summer of 1853, he returned for a few weeks to the United States, in order to receive ordination at the hands of the same presbytery by which he had been licensed to preach the Gospel.
His labors among the American and English residents and visitors at Rome were eminently acceptable. The Hon. Mr. Cass had kindly selected for his residence apartments connected with which there was a large room or hall that could easily be adapted for a place of public divine worship. Thus the chapel was conveniently and centrally situated on the western side of the great square known as the Piazza del Popolo, and facing the Pincian hill. Here the only Protestant services in the English language within the walls of the city were held under the protection of the American flag. The families constituting the American colony, and the visitors from the United States, represented, as may be supposed, all shades of Protestant belief; but so courteous and judicious, as well as faithful to principle, was Mr. Baird's course, that it conciliated and held all classes. So long as he remained, therefore, the American Chapel maintained its ground and grew in numbers and in favor ; nor was there a whisper of a desire to establish for Americans in Rome any other organization than that in which all evangelical Christians, of whatever name, could heartily unite for the worship of Almighty God, and for such limited exertions for the spiritual interests of the Italians as were possible under the intolerant government of Pius the Ninth.
In 1854 Mr. Baird returned to the United States, with the expectation of being able at once to assume a pastoral charge in this country. For a time, however, this hope was deferred by a painful affection of the nerves of the eye, and he devoted the period of his enforced release from the regular duties of the pulpit in part to the prosecution of studies bearing directly upon the worship of the sanctuary. In 1855 he published his volume entitled "Eutaxia or, The Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical; Sketches by a Minister of the Presbyterian Church," and, in 1856, a second volume, "A Book of Public Prayer, Compiled from the Authorized Formularies of Worship of the Presbyterian Church, as Prepared by the Reformers Calvin, Knox, and Others." The two books taken together became a standard authority in a branch of historical research altogether novel on this side of the ocean. Himself no friend or advocate of an enforced liturgy, Mr. Baird showed that the Presbyterian minister who desires to enrich his pulpit services with the best suggestions of past ages, and to free them from the appearance of irregularity or disorder, need not go outside of the authorized formularies of his own church and the writings of its reformers, to obtain all the legitimate help that he requires. With characteristic modesty, the author refrained from placing his name on the title-page of either volume.
In 1859 Mr. Baird received and accepted a call to become pastor of a young enterprise, known as the Reformed Dutch Church of Bergen Hill, in South Brooklyn, N.Y. Here he remained two years, greatly endearing himself to the people of his charge, until he was invited, in 1861, to occupy a larger and more laborious field of Christian activity. It was less than a month after the firing upon Fort Sumter, that having accepted the call of the Presbyterian Church of Rye, Westchester County, N. Y., he was solemnly installed as its pastor; and here the last twenty- six years of his life—the years of his highest activity both as a minister of the Gospel and as an author—were passed. Shortly after his entering upon the duties of his pastorate at Rye, he was married, on the 2d of July, 1861, to Miss Margaret E. Strang, eldest daughter of the late Theodosius Strang, of New York, a well-known and honorable Christian merchant. Of the long and faithful pastorate of Dr. Baird at Rye, extending over more than a quarter of a century, it is not needful here to speak. Some statistics which indicate, though only imperfectly, the results of his assiduous efforts, will be found in a sermon preached on the twenty- fifth anniversary of his installation.
Dr. Baird's historical labors grew naturally, and not of forethought, from his pastoral work. The preparation of a sermon preached on the day of annual thanksgiving in 1865, led one whose mind had a distinct bent toward historical research to examine the causes for gratitude to be found in the providential experiences of the church and the community in the midst of which the church was placed. An urgent request for the publication of this discourse on the part of those who had heard and been interested in it, induced the preacher to make further investigations, and to widen its scope. So it was that a sermon, which had originally been intended merely to serve the need of the occasion of its delivery, became a treatise of no mean proportions, and one of the most thorough and complete of local histories— "The Chronicle of a Border Town: a History of Rye, 1660-1870." The preparation of this work consumed the leisure hours of six years; the researches necessary for the composition of the "History of the Huguenot Emigration to America" occupied about twice that length of time. Not to speak of the fact that the author's mother was of Huguenot extraction, and that the region in which his lot had been providentially cast contained numerous families tracing their origin to the French Protestant refugees, Dr. Baird had from his earliest years been led to cherish unusual interest in the Huguenots by his familiarity in childhood with the scenes of some of the most thrilling events in their annals. As a boy he had played in the gardens of the Tuileries, had passed a thousand times by the Louvre, and pictured to himself the boy-king, Charles the Ninth, reluctantly ordering the butchery of his subjects, and fancied, when walking in front of the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, that he heard the stroke of the bell in the tower that gave the signal for which the assassins were waiting. An indication of his early interest may be found in the circumstance that among his first poetical efforts, when he was fourteen years of age, was an historical poem in full form entitled "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve." Of the excellences of the work in which, about forty years after this boyish effort, he undertook to chronicle the fortunes of some of the refugees and their settlement in this country, there is the less need to speak here that a competent pen will treat of them on another page. We confine ourselves, therefore, to the remark that, in the prosecution of his historical and genealogical investigations, Dr. Baird spared neither time nor trouble. In 1877 he made a special visit to London, to search the records of the State Paper Office, the British Museum, the Library of Lambeth Palace, etc., while the French National Archives in Paris, and the Archives of Leyden, La Rochelle, and other points of interest were explored by means of his correspondents.
Meanwhile Dr. Baird's literary activity was not confined to extended works. As historian by appointment of the Presbytery of Westchester, or as a member of many historical societies, he prepared a number of important papers, among which may be mentioned his monograph on Pierre Daille, his "Civil Status of the Presbyterians in the Province of New York," and the little volume on the " History of Bedford Church," growing out of a discourse delivered on the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Presbyterian Church of Bedford, N. Y.
On Monday, June 14, 1886, he delivered before the New York Beta of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, in the University of the City of New York, an oration on "The Scholar's Duty and Opportunity." In June, 1876, he received from his Alma Mater the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. In recognition of the excellence and utility of his literary labors, he was elected to honorary or corresponding membership by many societies, including the New York, Long Island, Virginia, and other historical societies; and at the formation of the Huguenot Society of London, in 1885, he was one of the only two American authors chosen as honorary fellows.
His last public service outside of his own pulpit was on Thursday, the 27th of January, 1887, when, by appointment of the Faculty of Arts and Science, he preached before the students of the New York University the customary sermon of the Day of Prayer for Colleges. The text was Matt. v. 6—"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." It was an earnest, able, and practical plea for personal religion.
His health, which was never strong, had not at this time given any reason for special anxiety to his friends; but the earthly end was nearer than any one suspected. On Saturday, the 5th of February, while in his study engaged in the preparation of the sermon which he hoped to preach on the morrow, he was suddenly attacked by what proved to be cerebral apoplexy. Apprehending from the first the issue of his illness, he exhibited, in the midst of great physical distress, not merely a cheerful resignation to God's will, but a strong desire to go and be with Christ as something far better. His trust was unfaltering; his mind was disturbed by no fears. "You know that I am ready," were among the last words that he uttered before he fell into a peaceful sleep, from which he passed quietly away into the life eternal on Thursday, the 10th of February, 1887.
His wife, a daughter, and a son survive him.
Such, briefly told, is the story of a life of singular purity and consecration to the Master. Words of eulogy, whether respecting himself or the work that he did, it has been our aim to avoid. It has seemed more fitting to leave to other hands the duty and the privilege of estimating the worth of the Christian minister who, his work well done, so quietly and willingly relinquished his hold on all that was earthly at the summons of Him who called him up higher to partake of everlasting blessedness.

Sources

1. ↑ 1850 Census.
2. ↑ 1870 Census.
3. ↑ 1880 Census.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} New York Tribune.
5. ↑ Baird, Charles W.

• 1850 United States Federal Census. Yonkers, Westchester, New York; Roll: M432_615; Page: 199B; Image: 405.

• 1870 United States Federal Census. Rye, Westchester, New York; Roll: M593_1115; Page: 221A; Family History Library Film: 552614.

• 1880 United States Federal Census. Rye, Westchester, New York; Roll: 947; Page: 242A; Enumeration District: 123.

• Baird, Charles W. Memorials of the Rev. Charles W. Baird, D.D. .. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1888, pp 1-12.

• Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com). Find A Grave: Memorial #130186016.

• New York Tribune. New York, NY: New York Tribune. Friday, 11 Feb 1887, p 5.