Sonoma County Biography
Charles A. Baker
It would be a difficult matter for the most casual observer to pass the ranch owned and occupied by Mr. Baker in the Bloomfield section, Sonoma county, without noting its well-kept appearance, home-like surroundings and general air of thriftiness. This comment would be just, and especially so when it is taken into consideration the comparatively short time that it has been in the hands of the present owner. The ranch is entirely in orchard, from which the owner reaps a substantial income.
In Butte county, Cal., in 1874, Charles A. Baker was born, the son of Andrew K. and Louise (Walker) Baker, the former of whom was a native of Arkansas. On a farm in an unprogressive portion of that southern state the news of a larger opportunity for his energies reached the ears and penetrated the consciousness of Andrew K. Baker, and it was not without due deliberation that he decided to leave the locality in which his ancestors had lived for so many years and cast in his lot with the immigrants to the Golden West. The year 1852 found him crossing the plains with ox-teams, and in due time he halted in San Joaquin county, where, near Lodi, he turned his knowledge of farming to good account. He remained in that locality for about seven years, when he went to Butte county, in 1865, and settled in a section as yet very sparsely inhabited. There he bought two hundred acres of land which he sowed to grain, which yielded large crops, and in the course of the more than twenty years that he was spared to carry on this property he became well-to-do financially. There he passed away in 1887, and there his widow still makes her home, in the house in which all of her seven children were born. Named in order of their birth the children born to these worthy parents were as follows: William, living in Oregon; Arthur, Jessie, May, Mattie and Bessie, all of whom make their home with their mother; and Charles A., the subject of this sketch.
When he was a boy in school Charles A. Baker suffered the loss of his father by death, and as soon as his education was completed he assisted his brothers in carrying on the work of the home ranch which the father had laid down. This association continued in harmony and with profit for many years, when, in 1909, Charles A. came to Sonoma county and bought part of the Andrews ranch of forty-two acres near Bloomfield, the same property on which he resides today. The cultivation of the best grades of apples constitutes his chief industry, twenty-five acres being in the Gravenstein, Alexander, Bellflower and winter varieties. Since Mr. Baker has become the owner of the property he has put it in the best possible condition through supplying whatever was lacking to make it an up-to-date ranch, and the appearance which it presents today bespeaks the owner to be a man of method and one who appreciates the necessity of caring for details. During his first season, 1909, his crop netted him returns to the amount of $600, and the outlook for the present year bids fair to exceed that considerably.
The marriage of Mr. Baker in 1909 united him with Miss Frances V. Perry, who like himself is a native of Butte county. They have one daughter, Frances Louise, born October 4, 1910. In his political preferences Mr. Baker is a Democrat, and fraternally his is associated with the Odd Fellows order.
History of Sonoma County, California
History by Tom Gregory : Historic Record Company, 1891
Los Angeles, Ca. 1911
Transcribed by Roberta Hester Leatherwood
November 29, 2007 Pages 1004-1005
Sonoma County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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