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Biography of
Elizabeth Marshall Baird

Came to Utah October 1866
Written by Elizabeth Ann Fowers Phillips, Her Granddaughter
Of Camp No. 2 of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Provo, Utah


Elizabeth Marshall Baird was born April 14, 1827 in Parkhead, Lanarkshire, Scotland, daughter of William Marshall and Ann Wiley Marshall of Scotland. Her father was short of stature. He was in the battle of Waterloo and his sword hung over their fireplace.

After the third daughter, Elizabeth, was born her father died. Her mother received a small army pension an also took in sewing which she did at home for wealthy patrons. All three girls did fine sewing and helped their mother earn their livelihood at this trade. Grandmother Elizabeth was the youngest of the family and was sent for thread, trimming and to deliver the finished articles and other errands.

She was a beautiful little girl, height 5 feet 1 inch tall with a pink and white completion, light brown hair and blue grey eyes. She had small dainty hands and her two eldest sisters always admired her for her sunny, cheerful disposition. She had a soprano voice and sang in the church choir. This little Scotch lassie lived good music.

She met John Baird and were soon sweethearts. When Elizabeth wasn’t interested in going out with him, her older sisters would tell her they wished John would ask them to go out. After a short romance they were married at the age of Seventeen in June, 1844. Grandfather was always kind and considerate of her. He was sergeant of the police force and made a good income and furnished them a lovely home.

Grandmother’s older sister, Ann, married James Robinson and had two daughters, Martha and Mary, and ten sons. James and their older sons worked in the coal mines. They lived in what was known as Fancy Row, in Rutherglen about three miles from Glasgow and were called Colliers. They made good wages. Their eldest son, William, had a beautiful baritone voice and sang in Glasgow entertainments. All the family was musically inclined—good singers, piano players, playing different instruments, and had a band within their family. They had a beautiful home and furnishings. Their children had the advantage of a good education.

Grandmother’s other sister, Barbara Marshall, married Tom McCollough or McColluch. She had brown hair and blue grey eyes and was large of stature. She had a sense of humor which her friends and family enjoyed.

Soon after grandmother was married they heard LDS missionaries preaching and became interested. They investigated this new religion thoroughly and joined the church.

They were a thrifty and conservative family and began saving to come to Utah where their children would have the advantage of the new religion and a free country.
John and Elizabeth had five sons and three daughters, Robert, William, Ann, Elizabeth, James, John, and Joseph were born in Scotland. The last two listed died in fancy. Martha Jane, the youngest was born in Heber City, Wasatch County, Utah. They left their material comforts and brought necessities.

The family left Liverpool, England, June 1865 on the ship Bellewood, an old freighter which had been fixed up with bunks and pressed into service as a passenger ship. There were 700 Mormons aboard and it took them many weeks to make the trip from Liverpool to New York. The ship leaked badly, and at night they awoke to hear the captain call his crew to man the pumps. The passengers feared they would never reach land and spent much time praying and singing hymns. Aboard ship each family’s food was rationed. Each woman prepared her own food for her family and handed it to the cook. When it was cooked he brought it to the mother to serve to her family. There wasn’t enough food and they were very hungry during the entire voyage. So great was the relief of the passengers when they finally landed in New York in July, 1865 that everyone cried and kneeled down to give thanks foe their safe delivery.

The Ship Bellewood sank in mid-ocean on her return trip to England.

The Bairds moved from Castle Gardens to Williamsburg, New York and lived there fourteen months to earn money to buy oxen, a wagon and provisions to cross the plains. The family started their journey again. When they reached the Mississippi, they took a river boat and traveled down to Council Bluffs, Iowa where they joined a party of immigrants leaving for the West in Captain Chipmans Company. They had bought three yoke of oxen and covered wagon which grandfather drove across the plains. He had never had experience with animals before. After a week with the Chipman Company, their two oldest sons, Robert and William, left to drive a freight train of covered wagons hitched together and pulled by six yoke of oxen at $40 per month. The family traveled ahead of the freight train and didn’t see or hear from their two sons until the boys arrived in Salt Lake City. Their two sons Robert and William and their three companions nearly starved after leaving the first freighter to walk across the plains, as their boss was cruel and the boys with three other boys all under twenty years of age walked until they reached another freighter who gave them food and a job until they reached Salt Lake City, October 6, 1866 where Hotel Utah now stands and where the family was staying in the tithing yard until their sons arrived in Utah a few days later.

When the pioneers camped for a day during their trek some of the men would hunt buffalo or other animals for food, the skins they used for many purposes as covers for their provisions, after they laid on top of wagons to cure, for repairing shoes and various other uses. Others stayed in camp repairing their wagons, shoeing oxen and the many chores needed in traveling. Grandmother and two daughters washed and mended their clothing as the other women did. In the evenings they sat around campfire; some danced and grandmother’s family sang, “When We Come to the End of a Perfect Day”, “Oh! Ye Mountains High”, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”, and many other songs to cheer the company on their journey.

The Baird family again reunited in November 1866 and moved to Heber City where Robert Baird, Johns younger brother and his family lived. Johnny Lee a resident of Heber, Utah moved the family belongings in his wagon. They rented a two room house on the outskirts of town.

Robert, grandmother’s son, had bought a watch in New York and this was given for rent to a Mr. McNaughten. It was on Dry Creek, latter called Lake Creek. Later the family moved close to town and bought a house from Bill Cole paying for it with a revolver, a dress coat made Prince Albert style and some wheat. The wheat they raised at Center Creek on a farm rented from a man named Ross. The Indians were a menace and stole part of the wheat crop. The family lived here two or three years and moved to Hooper, Utah where the climate was mild and they could raise fruits, vegetables, and grains on twenty acres of fertile soil.

Grandfather bought fenced and built a house of round cotton wood logs which were hauled from Ogden Canyon. The door, two windows and flooring were bought in Ogden and was rough lumber with a dirt roof. They planted grain, vegetables, gooseberries, strawberries, and fruits.

When the grain was about eight inches high the grasshoppers ate the crop. About this time the railroad was coming through Bear River Valley.

John Ritchie, Robert and William Baird and Grandfather John Baird went to work for the railroad. With money earned on this job John Baird bought his first team of mules, and a yoke of oxen. William bought a wagon and gave to his father. John went to Salt Lake and traded his big team of mules for a small team. Later the family lived in Salt Lake and John worked at the Rail Road Dept. The family moved back to Wasatch County, having been gone two years. They moved to Lake Creek where grandfather bought a farm. He was councilor to Bishop Benjamin Cluff and took the bread for sacrament to church each Sunday, as grandmother was an excellent bread maker and cook. Many times walking three or four miles to church and return. They did temple work and always assisted their less fortunate neighbors.

Grandmother’s friends loved her for her quiet friendly and gracious personality. She was charitable toward people’s faults and did not gossip. She talked with her Scotch accent during her lifetime, which was musical to all her family. She was an inspiration to all who knew her and he leaves a tradition of high deals. She recalled the troubled times of her pioneer life in making a home on their homestead far from neighbors and Indians asking for food. Such experiences were expected and part of rural life. She was faithful to her church, in paying tithing and fast offerings and all other obligations. She made all her clothing by hand and always looked neat and lovely. Grandfather bought cashmere of blue, brown and dark red for her birthday’s and Christmas gifts as they were more cheerful than black.

I visited with them often as a child and as long as they lived her kind companionship was an inspiration to me always.

She and grandfather were living in an apartment of her daughter Ann Baird McAffee home in Charleston, Utah and when she walked outside one winter evening she fell on ice and broke her hip. The doctor put a cast on with weights to her foot. She suffered six months and died June 14, 1905 loved and respected by all her family and acquaintances. A pioneer whose memory will never die.

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