George Holbrook BAKER

 

George Holbrook BAKER was a pioneer who did much to bring California and its early conditions to the attention of the world, and his exceptional talent and business ability enabled him to render large contribution to the civic and material development and progress in the state of his adoption, and especially the City of San Francisco.

A representative of a sterling New England Colonial family, Mr. BAKER was born on the paternal homestead farm near Dedham, Massachusetts, and the date of his nativity was March 9, 1827.  He was the second in a family of four children, the others having been Elizabeth (Mrs. Richard RICHARDSON), Francis and John.  He was a son of John and Evelyn (HOLBROOK) BAKER, the American progenitors in both the paternal and maternal lines having come from England about 1630 and both families having given patriot soldiers to the Continental forces in the War of the Revolution.  John BAKER was a substantial farmer in the old Bay State, where he remained until his death, in 1868, his wife having passed away about the year 1852.  The father of Mrs. BAKER was a bell founder and organ builder, and the distinction of casting the first large bell manufactured in the United States, the firm of which he was a member having been organized in 1816 and the name of HOLBROOK having long been one of prominence in connection with manufacturing industry in Massachusetts.

He to whom this memoir is dedicated was afforded the advantages of private and other schools in the City of Boston, and thereafter he attended the Academy of Design in New York City, where he took a course through which he well developed his natural artistic talent.  As an artist when he came to California, within a short time after the historic discovery of gold in this state had attracted almost universal attention throughout the civilized world.  He made his way to the Pacific Coast by way of Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico, and arrived in San Francisco on the 28^th of May, 1849.  Of his impressions and experiences in California in that early day he wrote interesting articles for the New York Tribune, and in this connection it is specially pleasing to note that he made the first drawings depicting San Francisco, which then had a population of about 2,000 persons, these drawings having been used to illustrate his articles in the New York Tribune.

Soon after his arrival in San Francisco, Mr. BAKER made his way to the gold mining camps on the Sacramento River, and finally he became associated with General WINN and established a general merchandise business at Sacramento, General WINN being accredited as the founder of the fine organization known as the Native Sons of the Golden West.  In 1850 Mr. Baker made at trip to Portland, Oregon but he soon returned to Sacramento.  He made many sketches of different mines in California and Nevada, and was one of the most talented and successful newspaper artists of the pioneer days in California and on the Pacific Coast in general.  Such of his sketches and drawings as were preserved in newspaper files and elsewhere eventually became of great historic value.  In 1856 Mr. BAKER became editor and publisher of the Granite Journal at Sacramento, and in that city he was editor and publisher also of a periodical called the Spirit of the Age.  In the capital city he later engaged independently in the lithographing business, and there he continued as a pioneer in this field of enterprise until 1862, when he established his home and business headquarters in San Francisco.  In 1850 Mr. BAKER returned to Boston, the journey having been made on this occasion by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and in the following year he returned, alone, across the plains, his trip to the East having been made for the purpose of buying goods for the store which he and General WINN had established at Sacramento.  From 1862 until his retirement, about 1890, Mr. BAKER conducted the leading lithographic establishment and business in San Francisco and he was one of the venerable and revered pioneer citizens of this city at the time of his death, in January 1906.

Mr. BAKER was a spirited supporter of the cause of the republican party, and in the ‘50’s he was a valued attache of the office of the surveyor general of California.  He was a life member of the California Society of Pioneers, and was affiliated also with the Independent Order Of Odd Fellows.

February 11, 1856, recorded the marriage of Mr. BAKER and Miss Mary A. BELDEN, who was born in England, and who died in 1898, when about sixty years of age.  Of the union there was born seven children:  Mary is the wife of C.P. BLANCHARD, of Seattle, Washington; Eugenia is the wife of George LILLY, of San Francisco; Charles H. married Miss Dora BURTCHAELL and they maintain their home in San Francisco; and the other four children are deceased.