The Biographical Dictionary of America/Baird, Robert

BAIRD, Robert, reformer, was born in Fayette county, Pa., Oct. 6, 1798. His classical studies were pursued at Uniontown, and he was graduated at Jefferson college. Pa., in 1818. He studied theology at Princeton, N. J., and was licensed to preach in 1822. He served as tutor in the College of New Jersey, and in 1822 founded a grammar school at Princeton, which he conducted until 1827, when he became interested in the effort to supply every family in New Jersey with the Bible. In connection with the missionary society of New Jersey he did much to lay the foundation of the present school system of that state. He next spent five years in the service of the American Sunday-school union, visiting all parts of the country in the interests of that institution. In 1835 he left the United States, and for over eight years labored for the establishment of a mission of Christian benevolence in southern Europe, and for a revival of the Protestant faith, and the advancement of the cause of temperance in the northern countries. He returned to the United States in 1843, and continued the work on which he had been engaged in Europe. In 1846 he was a delegate to the evangelical alliance in London, and the same year was present at the World's temperance convention in Stockholm. In 1862 he again visited Europe, and did important service to the cause of the Union in public addresses to large audiences in London and elsewhere in Great Britain. He labored zealously throughout a long career, for the promotion of temperance and all other Christian reforms. He wrote numerous books, with a reformatory or religious tendency, some having been translated into nearly every European language. His "History of the Albigenses, Waldenses and Vaudois" is a standard work. His principal publications include: "A View of the Valley of the Mississippi" (1832); "History of the Temperance Societies" (1836); "Memoir of Anna Jane Linnard" (2d ed., 1837); "Transplanted Flowers" (Memoirs of Mrs. Rumpff and the Duchesse de Broglie, 1839); "Visit to Northern Europe" (1841); "A View of Religion in America" (1842); "Protestantism in Italy" (1845); "The Noblest Freedom" (1848); "Impressions and Experiences of the West Indies and North America in 1849" (1850); "The Christian Retrospect and Register" (1855). See his life, written by his son, Henry M. Baird. He died March 15, 1863.