Priscilla Baird
| Priscilla Baird | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Priscilla A. Davis 1828 Shelby County, Kentucky |
| Died | 1904 (aged 75–76) Denver, Colorado |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Mrs. J. K. Baird; Mrs. H. T. Baird |
| Occupation | educator, women's education advocate |
| Years active | 1851-1897 |
| Known for | founding Baird College |
Priscilla Baird (1828-1904) was a pioneering teacher in Missouri and Illinois and an advocate for girls' education. She began her career in Shelbyville, Missouri in 1851. She then taught at Liberty Female College and Lancaster schools before relocating to Illinois during the civil war and teaching at the Springfield High School. Returning to Missouri, she taught at Ingleside College in Palmyra, Missouri and at Hardin College in Mexico, Missouri. After completing nearly thirty years of teaching, she founded the Baird College in 1885, where she remained until her retirement in 1897.
Priscilla A. Davis was born in 1828 in Shelby County, Kentucky to Harriet M. (née Bell) and Samuel E. Davis. She studied with private tutors in her youth and attended Julia A. Tevis's Science Hill Female Academy in Shelbyville, Kentucky. At the age of fourteen, she was converted to the Baptist faith through her grandfather Francis Davis and an elder, George Waller. Waller also performed Davis' marriage ceremony on March 12, 1846, when she married Jesse K. Baird in Shelby County. Five years after their marriage, the couple moved to Missouri, along with their three children: M. Belle (born 1847), Thomas D. (born 1849) and Itonia J. (born 1851).
Baird began teaching at a private school in Shelbyville, Missouri around 1851 and remained at the school for four years. The institution was a Baptist school and she taught under the direction of elders W. F. Broadus and John L. Waller. The family then moved to Liberty in Clay County, Missouri, where Baird taught at the Liberty Female College, which was affiliated with the William Jewell College. She and her brother, John T. Davis each served as associate president of the college for four years, before Baird moved to Lancaster, Schuyler County, Missouri. She taught from 1860 to 1863 in Lancaster, but as the Civil War moved west, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois. Baird taught at the Springfield High School for seven years, while her husband, a surveyor by trade, served in the Confederate States Army. Jesse's exposure to the conditions during the war of camp life and long marches, caused health problems. Though he survived the war, he died at the age of 49 in 1871.
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