George Baker
The late George Baker, a veteran of the Civil War and for years one of the best-known farmers in Miami township, this county, was born in that township and most of his life was spent there, two of his sons and a daughter now occupying the old home place three miles west of Yellow Springs which their father bought in 1881 and on which he spent his last days. He was born on a pioneer farm one mile south of Yellow Springs on November 14, 1831, son of Isaac and Eliza (Graham) Baker, the latter of whom also was born in this county, September 27, 1809, a member of one of the pioneer families of Greene county.
Isaac Baker was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1807, and became one of the early settlers of Greene county, establishing his home here after his marriage to Eliza Graham. He and his wife reared their family here and here spent the remainder of their lives. They were the parents of nine children, of whom the subject of this memorial sketch was the first-born, the others being Mrs. Louise Hawkins, deceased; John, who was killed in the battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, while serving as a soldier of the Union during the Civil War; William P., who died on July I, 1907; Brinton, who is still living, making his home now at Dayton; Joseph, who is now living at Pratt, Kansas; Mrs. Hester Hutchinson, who is living at Yellow Springs, in this county; Sarah, who died in 1868, and Charles West, who died on April 14, 1914. Five of these brothers served in the Union army during the Civil War.
Reared on the home farm in Miami township, George Baker received his schooling in the neighborhood schools at Yellow Springs and early learned the trade of blacksmith at which he worked, at Yellow Springs and at Salem, until he was twenty-five years of age, when, in 1856, he joined that considerable band of Greene county young men, including Senator Plum and Captain Frazer, who went to Kansas in 1856 and started things going in the vicinity of where the flourishing city of Emporia now stands. George Baker set up the first blacksmith shop in Emporia and remained there for three years, or until 1859, being thus an active participant in the desperate struggle that then was being waged in "bleeding Kansas" between the free-soilers who wanted to preserve the Territory of Kansas against the intrusion of the institution of slavery and the "border ruffians" who, coming in from Missouri, across the river and from other points south, were determined to fasten slavery on the prospective state. The struggle finally became so acute that Mr. Baker, in 1859, became disgusted with the unsettled condition of things and came back home and resumed his labors as a blacksmith at Yellow Springs and was living there when the Civil War broke out. Early in the progress of that struggle between the states he enlisted his services in behalf of the Union and went to the front as a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which command he served until the termination of his term of enlistment, when he returned home and started farming ; but a short time later he enlisted in Company K, One Hundred and Eighty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which command he served until the close of the war, then returned to his farm and there remained until January 3, 1881, when he bought a farm of one hundred acres three miles west of Yellow Springs, moved onto the same and there spent the rest of his life, his death occurring on February 6, 1890. His widow survived him for more than twenty years, her death occurring on January 18, 1911. George Baker was reared in the Methodist church and his wife was reared in the Catholic church, and their children were reared in the faith of the latter communion.
On September 14, 1864, at Springfield, George Baker was united in marriage to Elizabeth Higginson, of Yellow Springs, who was born in Ireland, but whose girlhood was spent at Albany, New York, where she was living when her family came from that place to Greene county during the '50s. To that union five children were born, namely: John Wentworth, who died in 1866; Mamie C, who is still living on the old home place, keeping house for her brothers. William and George, who are farming the place; William J. and Elizabeth (twins), the latter of whom is now a nun, a member of the Visitation Order, in the convent at Georgetown, Kentucky, and the former of whom is noted above as remaining on the home farm, and George, who is also living on the home place, he and his brother operating the same, while their sister Mamie keeps house for them. The Baker brothers are good farmers and have a well-kept and profitably cultivated farm. They are Republicans, as was their soldier father, and take a proper interest in local civic affairs, but have not been seekers after public office.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918