Husband Hon. Harrison Perry Laird 1 2 3
Born: 1811 4
Christened:
Died: Aft 1882
Buried:
Father: Rev. Francis Laird, D.D. (1768-1854) 5 6 7
Mother: Mary Moore ( - ) 5 8
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General Notes: Husband - Hon. Harrison Perry Laird
He received his first discipline in books under a noted teacher, Jeremiah O'Donovan, a gentleman who had been educated for the Catholic priesthood, but who never took orders. Mr. O'Donovan was a man of varied and extended learning, a versatile genius, and withal somewhat of a poet, and the author of a history of Ireland. Mr. Laird remained under his tutelage for two years, and became deeply attached to his teacher. His next preceptor was the Rev. David Kirkpatrick, D.D., who kept a classical school at Loyalhanna Mills, in Westmoreland County, which Mr. Laird attended for two years. He then entered Jefferson College, Washington County, Pennsylvania, from which institution he graduated. After graduation from college he took charge of Madison Academy, in Clark County, Kentucky, for a year, and leaving it entered as a student Transylvania University, Kentucky, where he took courses of lectures for a year, after which he returned to Pennsylvania, and took a seat in the law-office of Hon. Charles Shaler, of Pittsburgh, and under his direction read law for two years, and was admitted to the bar of Allegheny County, and immediately after admission to practice located in Greensburg, where he still follows his profession.
Shortly after his advent to Greensburg he was elected to the State Legislature, in the year 1848, and was re-elected in 1849, and again in 1850, three terms in succession. At that period of his legislative experience he was a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Bank Committee, and drew up the banking law of 1850, some parts of which were copied or incorporated in the later National Banking Act of the United States. In the fall of 1880 he was elected to the State Senate from the Thirty-ninth Senatorial District, consisting of Westmoreland County, for the term of four years.
After he came to the bar he devoted himself with singular assiduity to his profession and to general literature, to which, being unincumbered by a family, as he was able to give more time than could most other members of the bar. Aside from the classical languages usually studied in colleges of the day, he was conversant with the French and German languages and with the Hebrew, and following a proclivity of research into ancient tongues took up the study of Syriac. [HWC 1882, 341]