My Genealogy Hound

FRANK BAKER, a native of Warrick County, Ind., was born June 25, 1852, the fourth in a family of ten children born to Willis H. and Mary J. (Dillingham) Baker, who were natives of Indiana and New York respectively. Willis H. Baker was born in Warrick County on the farm where Frank Baker now lives, his father having been one of the very first settlers in the county. After his father’s death he assumed charge of the farm, and November 14, 1843, was married. He was an enterprising and successful farmer and led an exemplary life; his death occurred November 4, 1884. His widow came to Warrick County with her parents about the year 1840, and Charles Dillingham, her father, was one of the early and prominent settlers. Frank Baker was raised on the farm with his parents, receiving a good common school education. He has always lived on the old homestead farm and helped manage it for his father, farming some for himself until the latter’s death, when he came into possession of a good farm of about 125 acres. He lives with his mother upon eighty acres owned by her, in one of the best residences in the township. In 1878 they found, while plowing, coal on their farm, and began prospecting with a view to mining it. They reached a five-foot, six-inch vein of a superior quality of bituminous coal at an average depth of thirty feet below the surface. Mr. Baker has the bank in active operation, and is furnishing coal for the neighborhood. He will open it on a more extensive scale in a short time and expects to compete with any of the mines of the county. March 4, 1884, he married Carrie Carter, of Warrick County. Mr. Baker is a Republican in politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His mother belongs to the Missionary Baptist Church, of which she has been a member since seventeen years old.