The Baker Family, Northampton

Transcribed by Elaine Scantlebury. Contributed by Lisa Slaski.

BAKER

Even before the revolution the Baker family was one of the most numerous and widely scattered in New York province. Some of the Baker families were of Dutch ancestry, but most of them of English ancestry. According to the first federal census taken in New York state in 1790, there were no less than one hundred and fifty families and doubtless nearly a thousand persons of the name of Baker reported.

(1) Richard Baker, who settled in Northampton, Fulton county, New York, probably came of a Baker family of Vermont and earlier of Massachusetts, but the records necessary to establish the fact are wanting. He was a farmer. He married -------- Downing and had eleven children.

(2) Daniel Baker, son of Richard Baker, was born at Northampton, Fulton county, New York, March 14, 1814, died September 2, 1889, in Dryden, Tompkins county, New York. He received his education in the district schools. In 1861 he came by rail to Cayuga and thence by team to Dryden, where he made his home and purchased a farm of one hundred acres, which he cultivated successfully the remainder of his life. In religion he was a Methodist, in politics a Republican after that party was organized. He married, in December, 1845, in Fulton county, New York, Sarah Jane Gifford, born July 26, 1820, died July 5, 1892, daughter of Annias and Polly (Proper) Gifford, of Fulton county. Children:
1. Charles, born in 1846, died of typhoid fever in the service in 1864, a soldier in a New York regiment.
2. Oscar C., born in 1848, living at Everett, Washington.
3. John mentioned below.
5. Emma, born in 1855, married Ambrose C. Atwater of Mecklenburg, Schuyler county, New York.
6. George W., born in 1857, living in Ithaca.

(3) Dr. Eugene Baker, son of Daniel Baker, was born in Northampton, Fulton county, New York, April 16, 1853. At the age of eight years he came with his parents to Tompkins county, and attended the public schools there, and the old Ithaca Academy, from which he graduated in 1873. He entered Cornell University and was graduated in the class of 1878 with honor, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Science. He took a post-graduate course of one year in chemical and physiological work in the laboratories of Cornell. He studied his profession afterward at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating in 1882 with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He began to practice medicine in association with Dr. Fish at Mecklenburg, New York, and continued there two years. Since September 1884, he has been in general practice in Ithaca, New York. He has been health officer of the city and a member of its board of aldermen. In politics he is a Republican. He is a member of the Tompkins County Medical Society, the New York State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He has been president of the county society two years, and was vice-president in 1994. He was Professor of Obstetrics in the Cornell Medical School. He is member of the Phi Kappa Sigma college fraternity and of the Order of Free and Accepted Masons.

He married (first), September 19, 1889, Mary L. Colling, born in 1850, died July 31, 1897, a daughter of Dr. A.H. and Maria (Blockett) Colling. He married (Second). July 6, 1908, Caroline Austin, daughter of James Austin and Caroline A. (Caster) Pierce, of Worcester, Massachusetts. By his first wife Dr. Baker has one daughter, Louise E., born July 28, 1894, now a student in the Ithaca high school.

SOURCE: GENEALOGICAL AND FAMILY HISTORY OF WESTERN NEW YORK; A Record of the Achievements of Her People In the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation Compiled under the Editorial Supervision of WILLIAM RICHARD CUTTER, A. M., Corresponding secretary and Historian of New England Historic-Genealogical Society, Librarian Emeritus of Woburn Public Library; Author of "Cutter Family", "History of Arlington." VOLUME I, Illustrated, New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1912.