COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY Of Henry County Indiana B.F. Bowen 1920 Surnames in this biography are: Baker, White, Barnard, Courtney, Branson, ISAAC W. BAKER. The estimable gentleman for whom this sketch is prepared was born in Liberty Township, Henry County. Indiana, on the 16th day of November, 1844, and is the son of Isaac N. and Jemimah (White) Baker, an outline of whose family history will be found elsewhere in these pages. In the common schools he acquired knowledge of the fundamental branches, reading, writing, arithmetic and perhaps some other studies, and when old enough to be of any service in the fields learned by actual experience the meaning of the various kinds of farm work. He was always of a practical turn of mind and did not at all shrink from manual labor. Even in his early boyhood he showed signs of thrift and industry that have characterized his later life and led to his success in the agricultural field. Mr. Baker remained on the home place in section 3, Liberty Township, until his twenty-second year when he went to Iowa and engaged in the pursuit of agriculture upon his own responsibility, continuing there for a period of two years. Not being satisfied to make that state his permanent home, he disposed of his interests there and, returning to Henry County, has resided here ever since. On the 26th day of August 1883, Mr. Baker and Miss Ella Barnard were united in marriage and for one year here after lived on a farm in Liberty Township, moving to the present home at the end of that time. Mr. Baker carries on general farming and by a careful rotation of crops maintains the fertility of his place, which produces generously all the grain, vegetable and fruit crops grown in this section of Indiana. He is a judicious agriculturist, plans his work systematically and by properly looking after every detail makes the farm produce considerably in excess of what is required to keep it in order and provide the family with countrymen, he devotes considerable attention to stock raising, which of recent years has become quite remunerative. Mr. Baker is a gentleman who possesses the esteem of his neighbors and fellow citizens and no one in the community stands higher as a public-spirited man of affairs. He is an uncompromising supporter of the Republican Party and has been a politician of considerable local repute, though never an office seeker. He is a member of the Red Men’s organization at New Lisbon, his wife belonging to Pocahontas Tribe, which meets at the same place. Mr. and Mrs. Baker have a pleasant home and are well situated to enjoy the comforts and blessings of life, which their co-operative labors have earned. They move in respectable social circles, are popular with all who know them and their standing among the best people of the township in which they live has long been recognized and appreciated. They have one child, a son, Herman, who was born on the 15th of November 1885; he is an intelligent, well-educated young man, interested with his father in the work of the farm and gives promise of a useful career in the future. Mrs. Baker is the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Courtney) Barnard, the father a native New York and the mother born in Ohio. These parents came with their respective families to Henry County when young, met and married here and had eight children whose names are as follows: Richard, Jennie, William, Catherine, Alfred, Anna and Ella, twins, and one that died in infancy. By her Second marriage to Isaac Branson the mother had one child that died young. Mrs. Baker spent her childhood and youth in New Castle and was educated in the graded schools of that city. She is a lady of good mind and varied information, presides over her home with grace and dignity and heartily co-operates with her husband in all of his endeavors to promote their mutual interests.