George W. Baker ~ Index
George Washington Baker, son of Simon and Mercy Young Baker was born 9 September 1837 at Pomfret, Chautauqua County, New York. He was a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Baker, born at Dedham, Essex, England in 1638 and was in Rhode Island about 1650.
In the spring of 1839 George W. Baker with his father's family, moved west to Half Breeds Land, Lee County, Iowa. His father, through the teachings of Elder Benjamin Brown, having received the Gospel and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here his mother (Mercy Young Baker) died 4 March 1845. On 8 April 1845 his father, Simon Baker married Miss Charlotte Leavitt, who was ever a kind and loving mother to his eight motherless children.
In the spring of 1846 the Mormon colony was called to go to the Rocky Mountains, so Simon Baker and his family got together an outfit consisting of four yoke of oxen and two wagons, one span of horses and a light wagon, together with three or four cows and some sheep. His farm and entire improvements which sold for $4300 was entirely consumed in purchasing the outfit, leaving them with but little clothing and food for their journey. After leaving this place they went first to Mount Pisgah, where they located for about three months. Here Simon Baker went down the Mississippi River to exchange their horses for oxen, they being considered better for the journey. On his return, he moved across the Mississippi to Winter Quarters, (now Florence, Nebraska) where he built a cabin for his family. He then took his older boys and his teams and went down into Missouri to get means to prepare for his trip west, intending to cross the Rocky Mountains with the first company of Mormons.
During the winter he procured a scanty outfit for such an undertaking; but before starting he counseled with his family and put the matter to a vote, whether they undertake such a perilous journey with such a large family in their destitute condition. The family vote was unanimous to start on the journey. The outfit consisted of four wagons and ox-teams and their party numbered fifteen. Leaving Florence, Nebraska about 1 May 1847, they went out to Elk Horn River, where the Saints met in camp to organize in companies to cross the plains.
During their stay in Florence, George was afflicted with scurvy from which hundreds died. The cause was said to have been bad water and scarcity of vegetables. Being bedfast all winter he was expected to die at any moment, but as spring approached he took a turn for the better and though crippled at first, as time progressed he recovered good health and walked every step of the way from Nauvoo to Great Salt Lake City, having neither hat nor shoes, his clothing being a shirt and trousers made of pieces of wagon cover.
They were organized into companies of hundreds, subdivided into fifties and then again into tens, each company having a captain. When they got two hundred miles west of the Missouri River, now in Nebraska, the country was densely inhabited by buffalo which gave an abundance of meat. The company in which the Baker family came was presided over by Jedediah M. Grant and arrived in Great Salt Lake City, 3 October 1847. They formed camp on City Creek, just south of the old fort.
They found the Indians very poor, but friendly and peaceable. Now began preparations for winter. A fort was laid out. Thirty acres being enclosed by log houses with shanty roofs made of poles covered with dirt. Timber being scarce in the valley and the canyons very rugged, it was quite late in the winter before these refugees were housed.
Supplies were now nearly exhausted. A survey of foodstuffs was taken and rigid economy adopted. An apportionment was made per day to carry over until the coming harvest. This, with poor beef and thistle roots which were quite abundant during the winter, formed the diet of these people and George W. Baker's occupation was gathering thistle roots, herding stock, etc., still having neither hat nor shoes.
In 1851, George W. Baker went with his father to work for the church in North Canyon, where they continued getting out wood and timber until the fall of 1853, when he and his brother Amenzo W. Baker were called on a mission to the Snake Indians (Shoshone), where he assisted in building Fort Supply, now Robertson, Wyoming and learned the Indian language.
In June 1854 he returned to Great Salt Lake where he engaged in caring for the stock and dairy work until August 1855 when he went with his father's stock to Cache Valley, which was then uninhabited. He and his brother Joseph Baker built the first house, a log cabin, in the valley and here he remained during the hard winter of 1855-1856. In May 1856, his father was called on a mission to colonize Carson Valley, Nevada. He was left in charge of his father's farm on the Jordan River.
In 1857 he went to Cache Valley and put up sixty tons of hay, intending to winter part of their stock there but their plans were changed when the Carson Nevada Mission was broken up and the United States sent an army of 14,000 troops to Utah (The Utah War), as they believed, to hang all the Mormon leaders. Brigham Young, Governor of Utah called out the militia (Marshal Law) of the territory and George W. Baker enlisted, starting from Great Salt Lake City 14 August 1857 with a company fitted out as cavalry, under the command of Colonel Robert T. Burton, going four-hundred miles east. At one time he alone remained at Fort Supply six weeks, taking care of the crops which had been left by the people who had abandoned this settlement and gone to Great Salt Lake City.
In the summer of 1859, he made a trip with a load of passengers from Great Salt Lake City to California for William S. Godbe, crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains four times, returning to Great Salt Lake City the follow December.
On 5 April 1860, in company with his brothers Albert and Amenzo Baker, he started for Cache Valley, where they located on Gardner's Creek, midway between Mendon and Wellsville. The Indians becoming troublesome, they moved into the fort of Mendon and joined in the celebration of the 24th of July, attending a dance in the hall on a dirt floor, with one-half a tallow candle for lights. The first season in Cache Valley they put up forty tons of hay, raised sixty-three bushels of wheat, twenty-four bushels of barley and twenty-five bushels of potatoes.
On 18 January 1860 he married Agnes Richards, the daughter of John and Agnes Hill Richards. During the next two years they were troubled much with Indians who stole most of their horses. In September 1863 he was called to help colonize Bear Lake Valley. He afterwards returned to Mendon.
In 1864 the people moved out of the fort locating in their town lots. In 1865, George W. Baker was selected as a committee of one to build a rock meeting house at Mendon, to levy a tax on the property and collect the same from the church members to meet the expense of the building, which labor he performed with credit to himself and satisfaction to the entire community. The house being the best in the entire valley at that time.
In 1870 Mendon received a charter and became a corporate city. George W. Baker being elected its first mayor. As mayor he organized the city with a council, police, city marshal and prosecuting attorney, distributed the allotments to the citizens and issued over one-hundred deeds. In 1874 he was called to go to St. George to work on the temple. He made the trip of over five-hundred miles by team and stayed all winter assisting in the building of that sacred edifice.
He was a real leader in the community. He built houses, made shoes, acting as cobbler for the town of Mendon and he and Andrew Andersen made the coffins for burying the dead. He was charitable and generous to the poor and hospitable to all who came his way. He devoted a great deal of his time to the study of the scriptures, of science and philosophy and could converse intelligently upon nearly all subjects. He was the father of eleven children and died at the home of his daughter, Olive Baker Hatch in Logan, Utah on 16 October 1925 at the ripe old age of eighty-seven years, having assisted in transforming the desert into fertile fields and beautiful homes.
Notes…
Mary Baker Jensen wsas the oldest daughter and second child of George W. Baker and Agnes Richards Baker. She married Jens Jensen and lived most of her life here in Mendon, Utah. This history was most likely created for and presented at one of the Mendon D.U.P. meetings. She was born in Mendon, Utah on July 30th, of 1864, so she had a front row seat to much of the history of Mendon.