John Baird

John Baird, was born in Scotland about the year 1730, and came to America with Gen. Braddock in 1755, and was with that general at the defeat on the Monongahela. After the defeat he retired with the troops into winter-quarters in Philadelphia, where, in the winter of 1756-57, he married a Quaker lady. In 1758 he was in one of the Highland regiments sent out under Forbes to attack Fort Du Quesne, and was said to have been killed in the battle of Grant's Hill, Pittsburgh, September, 1758. He left a widow with the infant son Absalom, who was born in Chester County, Pa., in 1758.

According to the traditions preserved by his descendants, John Baird, the ancestor of the Baird family of Washington county, Pa., was an officer in the British army under General Braddock, serving in the disastrous campaign against Fort Duquesne in 1755, and sharing in the sanguinary defeat on the 9th of .July, on the Monongahela; later, according to the same authorities, he served in General Forbes' expedition, in 1758, losing his life in the ambush that resulted in the capture of "General" Grant. In the family accounts he is described as Major Baird. There is at least one mistake in the foregoing statement that is obvious. "General" Grant, who commanded the detachment that was so disastrously defeated, September 14, 1758, was Major William Grant, of the Highlanders' regiment, in General Forbes' expedition. Neither in his report nor in any of the accounts of the defeat is there mention of a Major Baird. It seems likely that the person meant was Lieutenant John Baird, of Captain John Prentice's company, in Colonel Hugh Mercer's battalion, of the Pennsylvania regiment, who was commissioned April 18, 1760. Colonel Mercer was in command at Fort Pitt. As Lieutenant Baird's name appears on the rolls, giving the number of lots of land alloted to each officer, marked " dead," it is probable that he died in the service. Major or Lieutenant Baird married Catharine McClean, who lived at Kennett Square, Chester county, Pa., in her widowhood, where she died November 28, 1802. Their only son, Absalom Baird, was a surgeon in the Revolution.