WILLIAM J. BAUGH, M. D., was born in Kentucky, and is a son of Thomas and Nancy (Paris) Baugh, natives of the same State. Thomas Baugh was a machinist in early life, but subsequently became a farmer. He was married in Kentucky, and there died in 1862 or 1863. William J. Baugh learned engineering and machine-work in his youth, and at the early age of sixteen traveled from place to place in the West and South, engaged in his trade. In 1851, he returned to Kentucky and engaged in mercantile trade at Port Royal until 1854. and then went to Booneshere, Mo., where he also engaged in merchandising. In 1856, he embarked in trade at Omaha, Neb., and in 1859 removed his goods to Denver, where in a few months he sold most of his stock, and started a wholesale peddling wagon through the camps of Colorado, Arizona, New and Old Mexico and Texas, also engaging in the trading of horses, mules and cattle. He thus continued until the fall of .1862, when with others he laid out Bannack City, the first town of Montana. In the spring of 1864, he resumed the road, and was variously employed until 1867, when he went into the hotel business, which he followed at different points until the fall of 1869, when for seven or eight months he engaged in steam boating on the Lower Mississippi. In the spring of 1870, he began the study and practice of medicine at Cincinnati and Covington; from 1875 to 1877, he practiced in Champaign County, Ill.; in the class of 1877-78, he graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Indianapolis. In the spring of 1878, he came to Chalmers, this township, where he has acquired an extensive practice. Dr. Baugh was married in 1845 to Louisa R. Hanks, who has borne him four children, of whom three are still living. The lady died at Chicago in 1866, a memberof the M. E. Church. The Doctor is a member of the I.O.O.F., and was a charter member of Henry Lodge. No. 101, of Kentucky.

Back to the White County Biographies Main Page