MIAMI COUNTY OHIO --------------------------------------------------------------------- Submitted by: Adina Watkins Dyer Email: adyer@nfe.com Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Biographical Record and Portrait Album of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, pp. 511-512 Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1888 DR. REUBEN BAKER, formerly of Stockwell, was one of the prominent and widely known pioneers and professional men of Tippecanoe County. He was a native of Somerset County in the State of Maine, where he was born February 11, 1811, was the second son of REUBEN and HANNAH (WHITTEN) BAKER, who were natives of the same State, and who in 1817 moved to the then far west, and settled in Butler County, Ohio, and subsequently (about 1829) removed to Montgomery County, in the same State, where the subject of this sketch received his early education and grew to manhood. He was educated at Cincinnati, where, even at that early period the facilities for imparting instruction was very good, hence the doctor enjoyed a better education than most men of his time. He chose the science of medicine for his profession, and studied at Alexander, also at Union, Miami County, Ohio, where he practiced his profession for some time before coming to Indiana. About 1831 he came to Tippecanoe County, and located at Concord, where he practiced medicine successfully for a number of years. On the 20th of June, 1839, he married MISS CATHERINE GLADDEN, a daughter of JOSEPH and HANNAH (ELLIS) GLADDEN, who were among the very early settlers of this county. About 1844 he bought a farm, intending to turn his attention to agricultural pursuits, but so firmly had he become established in the confidence of the community, that the professional duties forced upon him occupied all or most of his time. Where the thriving village of Stockwell now stands the doctor resided for a number of years, the then hamlet being known as Baker’s Corners. Having acquired a considerable fortune by the practice of his profession he removed in the fall of 1860 to Frankfort, intending to engage in the banking business, but, on the breaking out of the Civil War in 1861, he abandoned that idea, and decided to invest his funds in the better security of real estate, and bought a large tract of land at Wyandotte, where he carried on farming on a large scale; also milling, owning then one of the largest flouring mills in the State. In 1866 he sold this valuable property, and in 1868 removed to Stockwell. He was elected to the Legislature of Indiana in 1869, and served one term, after which he returned to Wyandotte,--that estate having fallen into his hands again,--requiring his personal supervision. In 1878 he again took up his abode at Stockwell, where he resided till the time of his death, which occurred from mental paralysis, January 6, 1881. His was a busy life of usefulness, marked by an honesty of purpose, and uprightness in all his dealings and a character worthy of emulation. A successful businessman who had amassed a large fortune, being at his death owner of about 800 acres of splendid land, besides town and village property. In his early life he was a Whig, and strong abolitionist, and subsequently, an active supporter of the Republican party from its organization till the time of his demise. He was a zealous Abolitionist at a time when there were but on e other and himself in the county and when it cost something to be one. The incident that led him to have such decided anti-slavery views, he frequently related in after life, with some degree of pride, and it is worthy to mention here. His father was a ship carpenter, and had charge of a shipyard in Cincinnati when the doctor was yet a boy. One day a stranger came to the yard seeking employment, and being respectable in appearance, MR. BAKER hired him, and he proved to be very sober, industrious and exemplary in all his habits, and to all appearances was a white man, without any African blood in his veins; but after he had been at work a few weeks, a southern planter appeared on the scene, and claimed him as his property, and having brought witnesses to prove his claim, he could not be prevented from taking him back into bondage under the fugitive slave law then in existence. This inhuman act so annoyed young BAKER, that he then and there made a solemn vow that he would oppose the institution of slavery all his life, or till it was abolished. This vow his sacredly kept, and at all time and upon all occasions, both in public and private life, he vigorously opposed the accursed institution. He lived to see the broad principles of freedom and justice, that he had so faithfully fought for, embodied in the Constitution of the United States. He was a Liberal in the truest sense of the word, with charity for all and malice toward none. He was a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a member of the Masonic order. Few men were so well or favorably known and respected. His widow, MRS. BAKER, to whom we are indebted for the information contained in this sketch, is a bright, intelligent lady, and is now comfortably situated in a pleasant home in Dayton.