Joseph Glover Baldwin (21 January 1815-30 September 1864), Southwest humorist, lawyer, jurist, and politician, is best known today for a single book, The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853), twenty-six sketches and satires depicting the boom-and-bust years of the Alabama-Mississippi frontier. He was born in Friendly Grove Factory, Virginia, the son of Joseph Clarke and Eliza Cook Baldwin, both of whom traced their families to Milford, Connecticut. He died on 30 September 1864 in San Francisco, California, of tetanus following minor surgery.

His father migrated from Connecticut to Virginia early in the nineteenth century, married Eliza Cook on 6 June 1810, and that same year established cotton and woolen mills at Friendly Grove Factory and at Front Royal, Virginia. The Baldwins had seven children, five of whom lived to maturity: Cornelius Clarke, Elizabeth Holmes, Joseph Glover, Cyrus Briscoe, and Cornelia.

Residing in several Shenandoah Valley towns, the Baldwins moved from Friendly Grove Factory to...