ISAAC HARVEY BAKER

HON. ISAAC H. BAKER, retired merchant, Ohio County, was born in the town of New Liberty, Owen Co., Ky., July 12, 1823. His father, Isaac Baker, a man of indomitable will and energy, quiet and unostentatious in manner, was a native of the same county, and there died in 1872, after an active life as farmer, saddler and grocer. His mother was born in Virginia, but removed to Kentucky when quite young. She died in 1874. Our subject was the eldest of eight children, of whom but one other is still living — Mrs. Pamelia Atherton, now of Ballard County, Ky. Judge Baker has been twice married, first to Charlotte Ann Render, daughter of Robert Render, now deceased. In 1859 Mrs. Baker died, leaving four children: J. W. Baker, a farmer of Beaver Dam Precinct; Laura A., the wife of P. O. Austin, a merchant in Beaver Dam; Naomi, wife of R. P. Hocker, the present sheriff of Ohio County, and Parmelia, wife of Leonard Bean, of Hartford, Ohio County. Judge Baker's second wife, Amelia Maddox, daughter of Samuel Maddox, died May 8, 1881, leaving no children. The Judge was engaged in farming until 1882, when he became a merchant at Beaver Dam. In the early winter of 1884, he sold out his business to Hocker & Co., and retired from active life. He had only such educational advantages as the schools of Kentucky afforded in his early youth. He, however, supplemented these by reading and close application to business, so that whatever was omitted in his training at school, has been acquired, to a considerable extent, by experience. Judge Baker is a firm believer in the doctrines of Alexander Campbell. He was a life-long Democrat until 1876, when he became an active Greenbacker, and in the presidential election of 1884 he voted for Gen. B. F. Butler.

Source: J. H. BATTLE, W H. PERRIN, & G. C. KNIFFIN 1895