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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Hot Spring County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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James G. Baker, an old and well-known resident of Hot Spring County, having come here in 1853, was born in Tuscumbia, Ala., in 1829, and is a son of Job and Nellie (Ellis) Baker, natives of England and Scotland, respectively. The father was a carpenter by trade, who died in Tennessee in 1863, but the mother lived to a very advanced age. James G. Baker was reared and instructed in the duties of farm life, and received a somewhat limited education in his youth. When twenty-one years of age he left home and commenced farming on his own account, renting land for that purpose. In 1853 he moved to Arkansas and settled in Clear Creek, where he purchased a farm and resided until after the war, when he moved to his present home, buying a quantity of bottom land then in a wild state. This he improved and cultivated, and now owns about 145 acres of valuable land, comprising one of the most productive farms in that section. Mr. Baker was married in the year 1853, to Miss Drucilla Gillis, of Tennessee, by whom he has had eight children: Clinton (a farmer), Martha (wife of Mr. Samuel Sims), Lee, Alfonzo, Alonzo, Hallie B., Jethro and Adolphus. In July, 1861, he enlisted in the Twelfth Arkansas, and served through the war with distinction, taking part in the battles at Pilot Knob, Port Hudson, Price’s raids through Missouri, Boonville, Mo., Lexington, Kansas City, and a great number of skirmishes. He was captured at Island No. 10, and again at Port Hudson, and suffered all the tortures of the enemy’s prisons. After the war he returned home and found his farm in a destitute condition, but by unbounded energy and perseverance he succeeded in once more building up his former state of prosperity, and is now on a solid basis. Mr. Baker and wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and take an interest in all religious matters.

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This family biography is one of 52 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Hot Spring County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Hot Spring County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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