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 grandfather of U.S. president Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Baines was born in Mount Lebanon, Louisiana, and his family moved to Anderson, Texas, when he was four. He was a son of George Washington Baines. He studied at Baylor University, then located in Independence, Texas. He entered the Confederate army "while quite a youth" with W. M. Williamson's cadets, later joining Walter L. Mann's Texas Cavalry Regiment. In 1867 he moved to Collin County, Texas, where he studied law under James W. Throckmorton. Baines began to practice law in Plano, Texas, in 1870, later moving to nearby McKinney the same year. Prior to his appointment as Secretary of State by John Ireland in 1883, Baines was the publisher, 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. Baines was the Secretary of State of Texas until 1887. Later, beginning in 1903, he was a member of the Texas House of Representatives for one term, and was succeeded by his future son-in-law Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr.

Baines married Ruth Ament Huffman of Collin County in 1869. Both are buried at Der Stadt Friedhof in Fredericksburg, Texas. They were the parents of Rebekah Baines Johnson, and the maternal grandparents of Lyndon B. Johnson.