Shaver, F. A., Arthur P. Rose, R. F. Steele, and A. E. Adams, compilers.  "An
Illustrated History of Central Oregon." ("Embracing Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam,
Wheeler, Crook, Lake, & Klamath Counties")  Spokane, WA: Western Historical
Publishing Co., 1905.  p. 625.
 
WILLIAM R. BAKER

     is certainly one of the oldest pioneers of Oregon, and has passed an
eventful career in all those experiences incident to early life and the
development of a great and remote country. At the present time he is residing
about four miles south from Blalock, and while he oversees his interests in
stock and land, still he is more retired from active life and is spending the
golden years of his pilgrimage in the enjoyment of the competence he possesses,
amid many warm friends who prize him for his worth, his work and his virtues.
     William R. Baker was born in Meigs county, Tennessee, on December 14, 1837.
His parents were John and Elizabeth (Rector) Baker, natives respectively of
Virginia and Tennessee. The former died on the old donation claim and the latter
lived to be exactly the same age of her departed husband and she, too, passed
away. The father came to Tennessee when a young man, accompanying his parents.
He served in the Creek Indian war under General Jackson, and remained in
Tennessee until 1843, then removed to Missouri, having previously married in the
Big-bend State. In the spring of 1846 Mr. Baker, having made extensive
preparations for the trip, started out to go by ox teams to the Pacific coast.
He had two hundred and forty head of cattle, and the train formed at
Independence. He was chosen captain and all went well. On the Platte the
buffalos were so thick that men had to be sent ahead to drive them away from the
watering places, lest they stampede the train and destroy it. The train was
heading for Oregon over the established route and when in the vicinity of Fort
Laramie they were met by a man named Applegate. He persuaded them that he could
put them to their destination over a new route with much less travel. They
accepted his proposition and he attempted to lead them by the Hymboldt river,
the Rogue river valley area the Umpqua valley to the Willamette valley. They
were the first to travel that route and it entailed much hardship and labor in
cutting a way through the wooded portions of the mountains. This delayed them
and the season was getting late when it dawned on them that they were in a trap.
Applegate fled one night and left them to shift as best they could. To add to
the horrors, the Indians were terribly hostile and their sneaking tactics
brought untold suffering on the poor emigrants. They would hide and shoot arrows
from their ambush and this constant harassing not only wore out the hearts of
the travelers but killed their stock and some of their numbers. Then the
provisions ran out and all were put on short rations which were shortened as the
days went by. Finally almost every edible in me entire train was gone and they
depended on the beef of their poor worn animals for subsistence. The animals
killed by the flying arrows of the Indians were not eaten for fear of poison.
The men were worn out, the deaths had been frequent, wagons had been abandoned,
as the necessities demanded on different occasions, and those things, with the
terrible harassing of the savages and the lack of provisions, had well nigh
extinguished the little train. To add to the horrors, winter came on and it
seemed as if their doom was surely sealed. They would never give up and stolidly
turned from each new made grave with determination to continue until death
overtook them. The mud got so deep that they were enabled to make no more than
three miles per day. Where Roseburg now stands the Indians killed a man named
Newton and lest they fall a prey to these awful fiends they nerved themselves to
persevere. The mud grew worse, and finally they were about to give up, when on
January first, a party of Frenchmen met them having supplies and horses. Word
had gone on before of the terrible plight of the train. Abandoning their wagons,
they were transported by the horses. Where Corvallis now stands the weary
pilgrims saw a cabin, the first one they had seen after leaving the Missouri
river. They finally reached Colonel Nesmuth's place, which was near where Dallas
now, stands, and there the land hearted colonel welcomed them, housing and
feeding the nearly dead pilgrims. Plenty of boiled wheat and good fat beef was
like a king's table and they fared sumptuously until the next spring when the
elder Baker took a donation claim six-miles south from the present Corvallis.
There he remained until his death. He was a very prominent man and won the
hearts of all who knew him. On one occasion when the settlers were fighting the
Indians in 1856, he took all his pork and flour and freely gave the volunteers.
     Our subject was only nine years old when this memorable journey occurred
but he well remembers it. In the summer of 1847 a little log school house was
built, the first in Polk county, and clad in his little buckskin suit the lad
began his studies. He grew to manhood on the old donation claim and Gained what
education he could from the primitive schools. In 1858 he took eighteen hundred
cattle to the Umpqua valley and remained there in the stock business until 1863.
During that time he had made many drives to the mines and the valleys, but a
heavy winter came and he finally landed back in Polk county with five hundred
cattle. The next year he drove his stock to the Prineville country and was one
of the very first to engage in cattle raising there. In 1869 he sold all his
stock and went to the Willamette valley and purchased two thousand sheep, which
he brought to what is now Morrow county. Two years later he sold his stock and
went back to the Willamette valley where he had a lot of land.  In 1882, he came
thence to Shuttler flat and bought land and took a preemption. In 1889, he sold
his property there and invested in cattle which he drove to the Big Bend country
in Washington, settling near where Coulee City is now.The following winter was
hard, and out of the four hundred and eighty head he rounded up, the next
spring, one steer. In 1891, Mr. Baker came to his present location. He. has made
a number of good fortunes in his life and, notwithstanding the wheel of fate has
turned him down on each
occasion, he is still the winner and has a goodly competence for his days.
     On June 11, 1863, Mr. Baker married Miss  Sarah Hale, who was born in
Indiana and crossed the plains in 1852 with her parents. Her father,  Michael
Hale, lives in Linn county. He married  Miss Gemima McKinley, who died while he
was crossing the plains. To Mr. and Mrs. Baker the following named children have
been born: Mrs. Silva Hulbert, Mrs. Ella Sperry, George W., Edward, Frank. Mrs.
Allie Hulbert, and Milton. Mr. and Mrs. Baker are among the most highly esteemed
people to be found in this county and he is to be credited with an immense
amount of labor in opening up and building up various sections of the west, for
which he received the approbation of all, while, also, he is worthy of the
generous confidence bestowed because of his integrity and uprightness.


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in January 2011 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.