Joseph Wilson Baines

Joseph Wilson Baines was born on January 24, 1846, in Mount Lebanon, Louisiana. At the age of four, his family relocated to Anderson, Texas. His father was George Washington Baines. Joseph Baines pursued his education at Baylor University, which was then located in Independence, Texas.

During the American Civil War, Baines entered the Confederate army while young, initially joining William McWillie Williamson's cadets. Subsequently, he joined Walter L. Mann's Texas Cavalry Regiment, serving for approximately two years. There is no definitive record of his name in the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System maintained by the National Park Service; records suggest there may have been a misrecording under the surname Barnes.

In 1868, Baines moved to Collin County, Texas, where he worked as a schoolteacher for three years at the Hide Out school and at Rowlett. He studied law under the guidance of James W. Throckmorton, a former governor of Texas, and Thomas Jefferson Brown, who later became a chief justice of Texas. In 1870, Baines began practicing law in Plano, Texas, and later moved to McKinney, Texas, the same year.

Prior to his appointment as Secretary of State, Baines was involved in journalism as the publisher, editor, and proprietor of the McKinney Advocate. He was appointed Secretary of State of Texas by Governor John Ireland in 1883 and was reappointed after Ireland's second inauguration. Baines served as Secretary of State until 1887.

Later in his career, starting in 1903, Baines served a single term as a member of the Texas House of Representatives. He succeeded to this office after the tenure of his son-in-law, Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr., who also served as a legislator. After his legislative service, he moved to Fredericksburg, Texas.

He was married to Ruth Ament Huffman, the daughter of John S. Huffman, a settler associated with the Peter's colonists. Joseph Baines and his wife are buried together at Der Stadt Friedhof in Fredericksburg, Texas, near the National Museum of the Pacific War.

Joseph Wilson Baines was the father of Rebekah Baines Johnson, and through her, he was the maternal grandfather of Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. Baines died on November 18, 1906, in Fredericksburg, Texas.