The Baird - Sims Bible
By Kenneth O. Sims
This one hundred sixty plus year old Bible was published in 1840. Its first owner was Joseph C. Baird. It is currently (2005) owned by a granddaughter of Esther Sims Stephenson (1892-1982) in Birmingham, Alabama, whose family has had possession of the Bible for around one hundred forty years. Therefore this writer refers to this Bible as the Baird – Sims Bible.
The purpose of the research for this writing, is to determine what relationship, if any, existed between contemporaries Joseph C. Baird and Beverly Hutson Sims, to determine when the Bible came into the possession of the Sims family and to record the history of the Bible for its current owner and others to come.
Joseph C. Baird was born in North Carolina May 12, 1812. He was married March 3, 1840 in Benton (now Calhoun) County, Alabama to Caroline M. Marable. Alabama’s Calhoun County Volume One by Mrs. Frank Ross Stewart records the following:
The Marables owned and operated the gold mines at Arbacorchee in Cleburn County and Randolph County. Two of the Baird men married Marables. James Ervin Baird married Lucy Marable. After J.E.’s death, widow married Joel Weems. They lived at Cross Plains. Daughter Emma Baird married B.M.Stewart.
Research indicates that Joseph C. Baird lived in or near Goshen, Cherokee County, Alabama. (He was postmaster there in 1847.). Cross Plains, Benton County was a short distance from Goshen, Cherokee County.
The first entries recorded in the Bible, which was published the year of their marriage (1840) were the birthdates of Joseph and Caroline:
J.C. Baird May 12, 1812
C.M. Baird Apl 8, 1824
and the date of their marriage:
J.C.B. and CM Baird
3rd March 1840
An early issue of the Jacksonville Register, July 27, 1842 contains the obituary of Matthew Marable who died May 19, 1842. Joseph C. Baird and Andrew N. Baird were administrators.
The next entries in the Bible are that of the birth of Joseph’s and Caroline’s two children and the death of one of them:
Zebulon E. Baird June 19, 1842
Matthew C. Baird Apl. 21, 1844 March 13, 1845
The U.S. Census of Cherokee County, Al., 27 Dist., pg. 80
Dated 19 Nov. 1850 shows:
Joseph C. Baird 38 $7600.00 R.E. N.C.
Caroline 24 Ga.
Zebulon 8 Al.
Caroline Marable 48 Ga.
Cornilia 16 Ga.
Thomas 13 Al.
indicating that Caroline’s mother lived with them after the death of Matthew Marable and that the Marable’s moved from Georgia to Alabama between 1834 and 1837.
Caroline Baird died March 21, 1851. She is buried at the Carmel Presbyterian Cemetery three miles northeast of Piedmont on Highway 278 then ¼ mile northwest on Hwy. 33 in Cherokee County, Alabama. The Cemetery Survey of Cherokee County, Alabama by the Gadsden Branch of the LDS Church records the following markers.
Mrs. Caroline Matilda Baird, consort of Mr. J.C. Baird, dau. Of M. and C.M. Marable, departed this life Nov. 24, 1851 in the 28th yr of her age.
Lucy B. Marable, wife of Joel Weems
May 8, 1820 – Mar. 29, 1904
M.C. Baird, inf. son of J.C. & C.M. Baird
Apr. 29, 1844 – May 13, 1845
Caroline’s death date was recorded in the Bible next to that of her birth.
On May 11, 1852, Joseph remarried to Rebecca Nolan, who was twenty years his junior, in Benton County. The last Baird entries in the Bible were that of the birth date of Rebecca under the birthdates of Joseph, Caroline and their children:
Rebecca Baird May 9, 1831
and Joseph’s and Rebecca’s marriage date on a separate marriage page:
J.C.B. and R. Nolen
11 May 52
Also, on the same page as the Baird-Nolen marriage, the following birth is recorded:
William M. Brown Nov 24, 1821
Research has not identified this William M. Brown.
Benton County was renamed Calhoun County in 1858.
The 1860 U.S. Census of Cherokee County, Alabama 1st Div. dated
15 July, 1860 on pg. 282 shows Joseph and Rebecca living in the household with James A. and Matilda Graham. One can only assume that the Bible is still in his possession in 1860.
Compiled Service Records show that on Sept. 3, 1861, Z.E. Baird age 19 enlisted in the Confederate Army at White Plains. This is certainly son Zebulon E. born in 1842. These same records record that J.C. Baird enlisted two months later on November 12, 1861 into Co. E 1st Regiment , Ala. Calvary. Company E was known as J. Powell’s Dragoons (Calhoun). In December, 1861 the 5th Battalion Alabama Vols. was formed near Dumfries Va. from units from Sumter, Calhoun, and Mobile Counties, Alabama, Compiled Service Records place both Joseph C. and Z.E. Baird in the 5th Battalion Alabama Vols. in Guincas, Va. These records record that Joseph C. Baird of Ladiga, Ala. who was born in N.C. and was 50 years old enlisted in Co. C on April 30, 1862 at Guincas, Va. and was elected to 2nd. Lieutenant and appointed Quarter Master before resigning on October 11, 1862. The Compiled Service Records also list several major battles fought in by both J.C. Baird and Z.E Baird. Z.E. Baird fought in two additional battles after the resignation of J.C Baird. The records show that Z.E Baird died at Guincas, Va. of small pox at age 20 on February 12, 1863 after having obtained the rank of 1st Corporal. This death is probably related to the portion of a blank 1860’s affidavit form requesting the pay due a deceased soldier which is in the Baird – Sims Bible. This blank form would indicate that the Bible was still in the possession of the Baird family when the form would have been placed in it after February, 1863. The death of Zebulon is not recorded in the Bible.
No record has been found of Joseph Baird after the army resignation of October, 1862. It is unclear if he returned to either Calhoun or Cherokee Counties. Neither Joseph nor Rebecca Baird appears in the 1870 U.S. Census of Alabama.
Between 1860, when the Beverly Hutson Sims family appears in the U.S. Census of Calhoun County and 1870, this Sims family moved to Jefferson and then to Blount Counties, Alabama. This move was evidently the same time that wife Nancy’s family (Moses Abel) moved there.
The first Sims recording in the Baird-Sims Bible appears to be the births of the Sims children:
Thomas B Sims
was born Ap the 15 1855
John B Sims
Mairred Dec the 31th 1884
was born Ap the 21 1858
Sirelda A. Sims
was born March the 26 1860
and in a different hand and by a different instrument
Henry. C. Sims
was bornd March the 31 1862
Robbert H Sims
was bornd Dec the 18 1865
married may the 30, 1899
The recording of the first three births (1855 -1860) appears to have been made at the same time which would put the recording after March, 1860. If this recording was done after the birth of the fourth child in March, 1862, one would assume that the fourth child would have been recorded with the first three. But, acceptance that the recording was done before March, 1862 is inconsistent with the placing of the military pay form by the Baird family after February, 1863. Since the second two births (1862 and 1865) are in a different hand and a recorded with a different instrument than the first three, they evidently were recorded after December, 1865. The marriages of Henry Claud and Robbert H. evidently were written in later.
A receipt dated Dec 7, 1881 to B.H. Sims for the sale of 1 bale of cotton was placed in the Bible. A receipt dated Feb. 2, 1883 to B.H. Sims for the sale of 1 bale of cotton was placed in the Bible.
Something evidently happened on August 8, 1883 that was significant because the date is recorded on the same page in two different handwritings.
Beverly Hutson Sims died May 19th, 1884. His son, Thomas Benton Sims, married second on January 15, 1889 to his first cousin Elizabeth Anna (Annie) Sims, the daughter of Hutson’s brother Henry G. who it appears never left Calhoun County. Henry’s wife Elizabeth (Chambers) Sims and several of the grown married and unmarried children lived in Chepultepec (which was north of Remlap) in the early 1890’s. It is easy to assume that they lived there in 1889 when Thomas and Annie married.
Nancy J. (Abel) Sims died October, 1, 1893. Thomas Benton came into possession of the Bible probably in October, 1893 with the death of his mother Nancy (Able) Sims, either because he was the eldest, or because she lived with him or both. Nancy (Able) Sims evidently did not like her daughter-in-law (and her niece by marriage), Thomas' second wife (and also his first cousin) Elizabeth Anna (Annie). Nancy was known to say: "I hate her, I hate her, I pray the Lord will forgive me and I hate her again.
A piece of paper with writing on both sides listing the first four children of Thomas B. Sims:
Woody Sims Baird October 4 1877
Florida Sims Baird August 21 1878
Hamp Sims Baird March 4 1885
Ester Sims Baird May 5 1892
(Baird appears to be a coincidental misspelling of Borned)
and containing various other names and towns with the year 1894 appearing several times was placed in the Bible. An analysis of this piece of paper can present the following scenario:
In 1894, within months of the Bible passing to Thomas, a 16 year old Florida Sims, evidently practiced writing abc’s and the year 1894 several times, and recorded the births of her older brother Woody (W.B.), herself, brother Hamp (H.H.) and step-sister Esther, who would have been about two years old in 1894, and also the names and addresses of her brothers, sister, herself, a first cousin Mary Cornelius, Viola, Ala , daughter of Thomas Benton Cornelius, a first cousin Dan Pearson, son of Rachel Cornelius, Mattie Haril (Harrell?), and li???e Sims, Chepultepec, Ala (possibly first cousin Lessie Sims, daughter of James H. Sims who lived in Chepultepec) on both sides of the paper as teenager might do and placed it in the Bible.
Letters from Elizabeth Anna's (Annie's) sisters Carrie and Eliza (neither of which seem to have married) who lived in Chepultepec with their mother Elizabeth (Chambers) Sims, were written in 1893 and 1894 and found their way into the Bible. These letters show that Elizabeth (Chambers) Sims was living at the time of their writing. She evidently died between the writing of the 1894 letter and 1900 when sons William Frank Sims and James H. Sims lived next door to each other in Chepultepec. Annie’s Brother Marion, and unmarried sisters Eliza and Carrie lived with James H. and his family at that time. Both letters refer to Esther. The 1893 letter suggests a visit from Esther and the 1894 letter suggests a letter from Esther. Esther would have been one and two years old in 1893 and 1894.
The births of only the children of Thomas by the second wife, Elizabeth Anna (Annie) are recorded on a piece of paper which is in the Bible. The fact that these entries seem to have been done at the same time would put the date of recording at after the birth of O.D. in 1905. Annie was said to have not had much use for the children by the first marriage and is said to have refused to raise them. A family tradition suggests that Hester’s brother took them. That would be Thomas Benton Cornelius.
The birth dates of Beverly Hutson Sims and Nancy J. Abel Sims are recorded on a separate page:
B.H. Sims Sep 24, 1813
N.A. Sims May 5, 1824
These entries appear by hand and instrument to have been recorded at the same time. The birth year of 1813 for B.H. Sims is not correct. An analysis of census data places his birth year at 1824. His tombstone records 1820. The birth year of 1813 is consistent with the birth year of B.H’s brother Henry G. Sims who, as for as it is known, never left Calhoun County. It is doubtful that either Hutson or Nancy Sims recorded these births. Nancy probably had possession of the Bible until her death in 1893. Thomas B., who had the Bible after Nancy had married Henry G.’s daughter Elizabeth Anna (Annie) in 1889. It is conceivable that the births of B.H. and N.A. were recorded sometime later and the birth year of one grandfather got recorded for the other.
Annie died June 7, 1919 and Thomas was killed in an automobile accident in Pinson, Jefferson County, Alabama on January 30, 1921. The Bible passed to the oldest child by the second marriage, Esther. Before Esther's death she passed the Bible to her granddaughter who has it now (2005).
It appears that the Baird Bible became the Sims-Bible in the early 1860’s. Research does not show a relationship between the Sims and Baird families.
