CHAPTER 3

Tom Baker entered this world in October 1860 just north of Manchester in Clay County, Kentucky. George Washington (“Baldy”) and Rachel Baker felt blessed to start their young family with Tom as their first child. The joy felt by the Bakers as they looked out from their porch to the Morgan Branch of Laurel Creek, however, was tempered by larger events outside of their control. The divide between the Northern and Southern states with Kentucky wedged squarely in the middle was coming to a head in the upcoming Presidential election.

Barely two weeks after Tom was born, the unimaginable happened. Abraham Lincoln was elected President.

Clay County was perhaps the most Republican-leaning county in the state of Kentucky, but even its voters would not stand for Abraham Lincoln and his party’s strong stance against slavery. The distaste for Lincoln was far more pronounced around the rest of the state where slavery was more prominent. Despite being born in Kentucky half a century earlier, Lincoln received less than one percent of the Kentucky votes for President that fall when Tom Baker came into the world.

While nursing young Tom a few months later, Rachel Baker brought up politics to her husband , “George, as I see it now, Lincoln is now officially the President. But the President of what? So many states have left the Union and there is a war starting. And Kentucky can’t figure out what to do.”

Baldy George rubbed his chin as he thought, “I guess we are pretty divided here in Kentucky. We don’t like Lincoln, but not so many of us want to actually leave the Union. I know Governor Magoffin has tried to bring the state of Kentucky into the Confederacy, but he doesn’t have the support of the people to make that happen. Now, it looks like we will claim to be neutral. But I don’t know how long that will work.”

Rachel just shook her head, “Damn politicians! I tell you how long that will work. Just until some Confederate or Union soldiers start shooting up our towns. Folks around here won’t stand for that.”

Nodding in agreement, Baldy George replied, “I reckon you are right. We are going to have to be very careful here while the war continues. Kentucky may not be the state pushing for this war, but we may end up right in the middle of the fighting since we are on the border.”

The Civil War disrupted everything in Clay County from business to schooling to families. The Bakers would not produce a second child after Tom for more than three years—a veritable lifetime for a couple who would eventually have eleven children.

Tom Baker grew up as the clear leader of his siblings. Not only would his parents have eleven children, but there would also be three more Bakers once Baldy George remarried following Rachel’s untimely passing. The children of Baldy George just kept coming. In fact, some of Tom Baker’s children were older than their aunts and uncles from Baldy George. These Bakers along with cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and other relatives formed a formidable share of the sparsely populated Clay County. There just seemed to be Bakers everywhere full of life and personality. None more so than Tom Baker.

Tom started his own family by marrying Eliza Allen when he was just seventeen. Although Eliza died young, Tom quickly married his neighbor, Mary Early (“Emma”) Lyttle, to help with his growing family. It seemed like every year or two, the house felt blessed with another baby. Tom Baker had fathered fifteen children before the age of forty.

With such a large family, it was no surprise that Tom was focused on the school system and the teachers in Clay County. An unofficial commissioner of the