Joseph Wilson Baines

Joseph Wilson Baines (January 24, 1846 – November 18, 1906) was an American journalist and politician. He was a Secretary of State of Texas and a member of the Texas House of Representatives. He was the maternal grandfather of U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson.

Baines was born in Mount Lebanon, Louisiana, and his family moved to Anderson, Texas, when he was four. There is not an exact match for his name on the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System although it is possible he was misrecorded with the surname Barnes.

In 1868 he moved to Collin County, Texas, where he taught school for three years at Hide Out school and at Rowlett. He studied law under James W. Throckmorton and Thomas Jefferson Brown, the former governor and future chief justice of Texas, respectively. editor, and proprietor of the McKinney Advocate. He was re-appointed to the Secretaryship after Ireland's second inauguration. He was involved as owner and publisher of multiple papers in McKinney, Texas. and was succeeded by his future son-in-law Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr.

Baines married Ruth Ament Huffman, daughter of John S. Huffman, who was one of the Peter's colonists. Baines moved to Fredericksburg, Texas, after serving in the legislature. Both Baines and his wife are buried together at Der Stadt Friedhof, on the first row, near the National Museum of the Pacific War. They were the parents of Rebekah Baines Johnson, and the maternal grandparents of Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. He died in Fredericksburg on November 18, 1906.