My Genealogy Hound

Francis Asberry Baker, general merchant, Buckner, Ark. This leading and most successful business man was originally from Lafayette County, Ark., his birth occurring on July 6, 1854, and he is an excellent illustration of what thrift, energy and determination will accomplish when intelligently applied. His father, Absalom Baker, was born in Tennessee, and emigrated from that State to Arkansas in 1850. Of German origin, he had all the worthy characteristics of people of that nationality, being thrifty and industrious, and was a successful agriculturist. The mother of our subject, whose maiden name was Miss Martha Elizabeth Tatum, was born in Tennessee, and is now living in Buckner. The father died in Lafayette County, Ark., on September 13, 1881, and had resided in that county since 1850. Francis Asberry Baker was the fourth in order of birth of eight sons and two daughters—seven sons and one daughter now living. He was reared and fairly educated in Lafayette County, Ark., and in September 1880, he engaged in merchandising at Hurricane Hill, in that county, where he remained in business three years. In 1883 he came to Buckner, and has been engaged in business at this place ever since. He carries a stock of goods valued at about $2,500, and is doing well. He was married in 1878, to Miss Amanda C. Strange, a native of Lafayette County, Ark., born at Lewisville, in 1860, and they have three children—a son and two daughters—Arthur, Maude and Claude. Mr. Baker has held the office of bailiff a term and a half in Baker Township, Lafayette County, which township was named in honor of our subject’s father, and was notary public of said county for four years. He cast his first presidential vote for S. J. Tilden. Aside from his mercantile business, Mr. Baker is also the owner of a fine farm of forty acres in Lafayette County, and as a man of industry and enterprise he has no superiors.