[4] Lard's works are mainly religious and meditative in tone, but draw their inspiration in part from the Bucolics and Georgics of Virgil.

[1] Rebecca (sometimes Rebekah) Lard (Laird) was born on March 7, 1772, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to parents Jabez and Priscilla (Delano) Hammond.

[11][13] About 1807 Samuel moved the Laird family to Hancock, Vermont, and from there to Cherry Valley, New York, where her brother was living at that time.

[12] Marcus Davis Gilman said of her, "Her life struggle appears to have been a severe one, having a family of four children dependent upon her for support from their childhood, but bravely did she triumph over all obstacles".

[11] Samuel Laird filed land entry papers in 1815 for 160 acres in Montgomery Township, Jennings County, Indiana.

[12] At some unknown date, prior to the birth of their children, Samuel changed the spelling of his surname to LAIRD from LARD.

The power that form’d the hills and spread the plain And bade the rivers roll towards the main By the same fiat gave this clime to rise And bloom in splendour ‘neath the western skies Crown’d with his richest gifts this favour’d land' And pour’d his bounties with unsparing hand

No cultering hand improv’d the fertile soil But herbs and flowers in wild confusion lay And trees umbrageous veil’d the noontide ray.

[14] Rebecca Laird died on September 28, 1855, and is buried at the Coffee Creek Baptist Church Cemetery in Paris Crossing, Indiana.