"An Illustrated History of Whitman County, state of Washington." San Francisco:
W. H. Lever, 1901.  p. 414.
 
THOMAS BAKER

     one of the esteemed citizens of Colfax, and one who enjoys an enviable
standing in society and business, was born in Bullitt county, in the good old
state of Kentucky, the date being 1832. When he was eighteen months old his
parents, George C. and Elizabeth Baker, took him to Hancock county, Illinois,
where he remained until the spring of 1852, employed on his father's farm, after
his educational discipline had been completed. He then started with an older
brother across the plains to California, in which state he arrived in August,
1852. For ten years thereafter he was actively engaged in the attempt to dig
wealth out of the earth, and he was one of the number who made the stampede into
the Florence mines of Idaho.
     For one season he mined in that region and for the two following he was
similarly engaged in the Boise basin, but he then turned his attention to
packing from Umatilla Landing to the mines of Idaho, and still later followed
this primitive method of transportation on the routes between Lewiston and these
points. Six years were thus spent.
     In 1870, however, he grew tired of this wild life and decided to come to a
more civilized section, so settled at Waitsburg, where for three years he was
engaged in the livery business. Eventually he secured a contract to carry the
mail from Walla Walla to Pend d'Oreille, a distance of one hundred and
seventy-five miles, and in the fulfillment of this agreement he was engaged for
the next year, the work being accomplished by the use of ponies.
     Our subject then leased the old Brown ferry on Snake river, and the same
was operated by him until 1875, when he purchased an interest in the livery
business of C. B. King, of Colfax, thus becoming identified with the city which
has since been his home. He was burned out of that business, then engaged in a
grocery line, but again his establishment was consumed by the destroying wrath
of the fire demon. He is at present again established in the livery business,
but divides his attention between that and the management of his excellent
two-hundred-and-forty-acre farm, located a short distance outside of Colfax. He
is a thrifty, energetic man, highly esteemed by all as a man of integrity and
worth.
     In Umatilla county, Oregon, in 1875, Mr. Baker married Elizabeth Brown, a
native of that state and a member of an honored pioneer family.  They have two
children, namely: Frank T. and Ida May.
 

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Submitted to the Washington Biographies Project in October 2010 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.