Simon Wesley Baker
Simon Wesley Baker was born June 1, 1824 in Virgil, Cortland County, New York, the first child of Benjamin Baker and Permelia Knapp Baker. Cortland County is located about 20 miles west of Ithaca and 37 miles south of Syracuse.
Simon has seven siblings: Simeon M., Sarah, Lucy (called Sally), Elizabeth Ann (called Phebe), Charles, John Wesley, and Riley. The 1840 Census showed that Benjamin and his sons Simon and Simeon were farmers.
On May 20, 1845, in Virgil, Simon married Emiley Amanda Shelley, who was born May 29, 1929 in Brownville, Jefferson County, N.Y. to Abram Shelley and Irene Knapp Shelley.
In about 1845, Simon and Emiley migrated with his parents and seven siblings to Wisconsin. The family took the favorite migration trail west, through the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes.
The barges on the Erie Canal were pulled by horses at a speed of a mile and a half an hour; passengers paid a cent and a half a mile. The trip on the canal took four days and ended at Buffalo, N.Y., where they boarded a steamer and sailed the length of Lake Erie to Detroit, Michigan, up through Lake Huron and through the Straits of Makinac, south down Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. The boat trip normally took three weeks if the weather was good; if not, ships would go to the nearest port and wait for the weather to clear.
On the voyage, Sally, age 15, was seen on her ship by Nathan Plair. He had the ship he was on draw up beside hers. He followed her and they were married. In 1853, her sister Phebe married Henry E. Greene, a relative of the Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene. Henry Greene was drafted into the Civil War in 1865 and six weeks later died of the measles. He was buried at Camp Randall Cemetary (Camp Randall was the training camp for recruits and is now the University of Wisconsin’s football stadium).
When Benjamin’s family arrived, Milwaukee only had a population of 18,000. The Bakers continued on to Wauwatosa, about five miles west and still pretty much a wilderness at that time. They used an old Indian trail that had been made into a crude road, but full of stumps and when muddy, all but impassible. Simon and Emiley’s first child, Emma Jane, was born there in 1848, the year Wisconsin attained statehood.
By June, 1850, the Benjamin Baker family moved to Brookfield, Waukesha County, and then to Hartford, Washington County by 1852. Most of their children had married and left home, but Simon and Emiley stayed with Simon’s parents. They moved to Horicon, Dodge County, by 1861. Simon bought 40 acres of farmland in Royalton Township, Waupaca County in 1864, on Butternut Ridge Road, about one and one-half miles from White Lake, where his father bought 60 acres.
Benjamin and Permelia lived in Royalton the rest of their lives. Permelia died on April 14, 1870, age 65; after her death, Benjamin lived with Simon and Emiley until his death in December, 1887, age 89. They are buried together in the Oakwood Cematary, Weyauwega.
Simon and Emiley had five children; Emma Jane; Albert Knapp; Clara Sophia; Volney Charles; and Ella Mary. We are descended from Albert Knapp Baker (1850 – 1924), who married Imelda S. Ballard (1851 – 1943). They had two daughters: Clara (1873 – 1952); and Lurah (1879 – 1968). Lurah Baker married Ross Webb Green and had three children by him: Royal Howard; Arlington Albert; Ordelia Imelda.
On February 20, 1864, when Simon was 39, he enlisted to serve in the Civil War as a private in Co. “B”, 14 th Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, under Captain Sidney B. Carpenter. Simon was described as being 5’9 1/2” tall, dark complexion, brown hair and blue eyes. His regiment, in 1864, was part of General William T. Sherman’s army, and he probably fought in the battle of Kennesaw Mountain. When Simon’s company was engaged in a skirmish with Rebel forces near Atlanta, Georgia, on July 25, 1864, he incurred severe sunstroke and was treated in a Regimental hospital for a week or more. In August, 1865, Simon contracted rheumatism of his right arm, side, and leg and was treated in the Montgomery, Alabama Regimental hospital for three weeks. He was honorably discharged at Mobile, Ala. on October 9, 1865.
Returning to his farm in 1865, Simon suffered constant headaches and rheumatism pain, to the extent that he was able to do very little physical work, and frequently needed to consult a doctor. In 1890 he applied for an invalid pension under the Act of June 27, 1890 and received twelve dollars a month until his death November 20, 1892 at age 68. His widow then applied for a widow’s pension and received the same allotment, but only after two years of filing affidavits to confirm her status. She died July 27, 1903, age 74. Simon Wesley Baker is buried in the Oakwood Cemetary at Weyauwega, WI.