Biography of Richard Baker
from HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, OHIO
by Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
BAKER FAMILY. Among the well known pioneer families of Seneca County, and of Eden Township, was the Baker family of four brothers: Franklin, Thomas, John and Richard, and four sisters: Mary Baker, Sophia Stearns, Lucretia Arnold and Ann Knapp. They were the children of Judge Samuel Baker, a native of Branford, Conn., and a descendant in the fourth generaton of Thomas Baker, who settled at Milford, Conn., in 1639, whence in 1650 he removed to East Hampton, L.I., which town he represented in the Colonial Assemblies of New York and Connecticut. During the invasion of New York by Burgoyne, Samuel Baker, then a boy of thirteen, was captured by Indians, taken to Burgoyne's camp and sold to a British officer. He was released by the surrender of Burgoyne's army, and afterward enlisted in Col. Marinus Willett's regiment and served until the close of the war. He was one of the first settlers in Steuben County [New York]; was for many years first judge, and one of the most prominent citizens of that county. Franklin and Thomas Baker came to Eden Township in 1822. Franklin entered the farm known as the Umsted farm on the Kilbourne Road, where he resided until his death in 1831. Thomas entered the farm adjoining, and there lived until his death in 1863. Samuel Baker and Mrs. C. Y. Brundage, of Eden Township, and Mrs. Albert Ewer of Tiffin are children of Thomas Baker. His widow, Sarah B. Baker came to Seneca County with her father, Col. Boyd, in 1821, and since 1863 has resided in Tiffin. John Baker came soon after his brothers and settled upon the farm on Rock Creek upon which he died in 1876. Mary Baker, with her husband, Joseph Baker, settled in Scipio Township in 1822. Mr. and Mrs. Stearns settled on Rock Creek in 1828. Ten years afterward, Mr. Stearns died, and his widow married the late William Fleet, and soon afterward died. John B. and George W. Stearns, two of the largest farmers of Scipio Township, are the sons of Mr. and Mrs. Stearns. Mrs. Knapp and Mrs. Arnold removed to Garden Grove, Iowa, where they now live. Richard Baker, the youngest of the four brothers, came to Seneca County in 1835, and purchasing several small farms, made the fine farm of 400 acres upon which he resided until 1871, and which is now owned by his son, Grattan H. Baker. In 1836 he was married to Fanny Wheeler, daughter of Grattan H. Wheeler, who was a member of Congress, and for many years a State Senator from Steuben County, N. Y., and grand-daughter of Captain Silas Wheeler, who, in April, 1775, enlisted in Capt. Thayer's company of Rhode Island Volunteers; was at Bunker Hill; with Arnold in his terrible march through the forests of Maine and Canada, to attack Quebec; was captured in the unsuccessful attack on Quebec, in which Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded, and kept a prisoner and in irons until August, 1776, when he was exchanged. He again entered the army; was again captured and taken to Ireland, whence he escaped to France through the aid of Henry Grattan, the Irish orator and patriot, after whom he named his only son.
In 1871 Richard Baker removed to the farm adjoining Melmore, on which he now resides with his wife, whom he brought to what was then little more than a wilderness almost fifty years ago. Time and fortune have dealt kindly with them both. With six sons and twenty grandchildren, into their family, death has never come. Notwithstanding the weight of seventy-seven years, Mr. Baker is still erect, vigorous, strong, self-reliant, but kind and tender-hearted. For years his class in the Methodist Sunday-school (of which church he and his wife have been members for more than forty years) has been the infant class into which no child was too small to enter, and from which no child was ever willing to go. Of the six sons of Richard and Fanny Baker, Silas is a farmer in Dickinson County, Kas.; Frank, a lawyer in Chicago; Job, a farmer in Wyandot County; Grattan H., a farmer, and the owner of the old homestead; Ralph, a farmer at Garden Grove, Iowa, and Richard W., still at home. Richard Baker brought to his farm, in 1837, thirty pure Spanish merino sheep, the first brought into Seneca County, and probably the first in northern Ohio, and has been one of the most successful wool growers, as well as one of the best grain farmers in the county.