Introduction
David Baird Sr., 1886.
The David Baird Company was founded by Irish immigrant David Baird Sr. in 1878. A protégé of William Joyce Sewell, David Baird Sr. found great success in the lumber business, and after Sewell's death in 1901, led the Republican party in Camden for many years. David Baird's business was national in nature, as he had lumber operations in eight states and operated ship’s spar yards in five different cities. When David Baird Sr. passed in 1927, his son, David Baird Jr. took control of the company.
Much of the business of the David Baird Company was in lumber used in ship and barge construction. When the demand for wooden ships began to fall off after 1935, and the increased use of reinforced steel in construction, business declined. David Baird Jr., who was more heavily involved in the insurance business as president of the Smith-Austermuhl Insurance Agency, closed the yard and sold off its assets in June of 1950.
The site of the Baird lumberyard is now occupied by the Campbell Field baseball stadium, home of the Camden Riversharks.
Photos
Downtown Camden aerial photograph, circa 1925. The David Baird Co. lumber yard on Delaware Avenue and Pearl Street is visible at lower right.
David Baird Company lumber yard on Pearl Street, 1926.
Camden Courier-Post — July 5, 1926
Photo feature of the David Baird Company’s lumber yard at 425 North Delaware Avenue, Camden, July 1926. Photos show the front end of the modern sawmill; entrance to the oak yard alongside elevators to the new Camden Bridge; group of electric and steam cranes which handle units of lumber in and out of the yard; discharging a barge load of North Carolina sizes of three and better boards manufactured at the company’s own mill at Haystack, Virginia; lot of white oak logs suitable for ship and heavy construction; and labor-saving devices adaptable for the distribution of lumber.
David Baird Co. Lumber Yard — 1940s
David Baird Co. lumber yard, 1940s.
David Baird Co. Closes Business After 72 Years
Camden Courier-Post —
Lumber Firm Was Important Factor In U.S. Industry
By OSCAR W. MAGNUSON
The David Baird Co., lumber dealers, a business which was started in Camden 72 years ago, has been discontinued.
Announcement of the closing of the business was made today by David Baird Jr., president of the concern, and son of the founder, David Baird Sr.
Termination of the business was announced to all of the customers of the company in a letter which Baird mailed, notifying them that the actual business had ceased as of June 1.
As he made the announcement, Baird said that he will now give his full time to the Smith-Austermuhl Co., general insurance brokers, of which he is the president.
Closing of the business ends the life of a concern which through the years has been much in evidence in the business life of not only Camden but in many other cities and states in the union.
Baird said that the lumber yard property on Delaware avenue and Pearl streets will continue in the ownership of the David Baird Co., but that it is in the market for sale “to any industry, and especially the lumber business,” he declared.
David Baird Sr., who came to the United States from Ireland in 1859 and to Camden in 1861 and who took a job in a Camden lumber yard, started the business at the southeast corner of Point and Pearl streets, a site now occupied by the RCA Victor plant.
The elder Baird bought the old Patchin property in 1901, and this included all the ground from the south side of Pearl street to 75 feet south of Linden street, and from Front street to the pier head line on the Delaware river.
He later sold Linden street to the City of Camden and the property where the first house is located at Front and Linden streets. Then he sold property to the old Victor Talking Machine Co., now the RCA Victor and to the H. Humphreys Co., now occupied by the Esterbrook Pen Co.
Operated Sawmills
Before organizing the David Baird Co. in 1903, after David Baird Jr. had been graduated from Princeton, David Baird Sr. operated saw mills and timber camps in Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
After incorporating in 1903, David Baird Sr. discontinued spar yards in Baltimore, Md., Mystic, Conn., Boston, Mass., and Bangor, Me., and kept only the Brooklyn Spar Co., which was operated until 1935 by the David Baird Co. In 1927 David Baird Sr. died, since which time the management of the business continued under David Baird Jr.
“The David Baird Company specialized in heavy construction timber, piling and spars and with the passing of the majority of wooden steamships, barges and lighters, we discontinued the making of spars in 1935 and therefore discontinued the Brooklyn Spar Co.,” said Baird. “Since 1935 the demand for Baird company specialties, heavy timber, has been greatly diminished due to the substitution of creosoted lumber, reinforced steel and large concentrated yards started in this area,” he said.
Other Company Officers
In addition to Baird, the present officers of the company are David Baird 3d, vice president; Maurice F. O’Neill, treasurer; George S. Bingham, secretary. Directors are Baird Jr., Baird 3d, O’Neill and T. Gordon Coulter.
The announcement telling the trade of the termination of the business also stated that Watson Malone & Sons, Philadelphia, has purchased most of the lumber inventory of the Baird company. O’Neill, who has been with the Baird company for 28 years, has been engaged by the Malone concern and will service old customers of the Baird company at the Philadelphia concern’s yard at Allegheny avenue and the Delaware river.