John H. Baker—The name of Baker has for a number of years been connected with the development and progress of Michigan, and the record of the family is one which reflects credit upon the county of Kent, especially the division known as Plainfield township.

The father of the subject of the sketch was John W. Baker, native of Lancaster, Ohio where his birth occurred July 11, 1822. When twenty-three years of age he married Elizabeth J. Flakes, also a native of the Buckeye state, and shortly thereafter removed to Kalamazoo county, Mich., locating in the town of Vicksburg, where he resided for a period of thirty years. He then became a resident of the county of Kent, and has ever since been numbered among the representative men of this section of the state. His wife is also living and enjoying the best of heath for a woman of her advanced years, and is the mother of eight children, John H., being youngest in order of birth.

John H. Baker was born in Centerville, Mich., September 12, 1864. In his early years he attended the common schools, and at the age of nineteen began life for himself as a clerk in a grocery store in the town of Fremont, where he remained four years, obtaining a thorough knowledge of business during the period of his service. His nest venture was the manufacture of flour at Bear Creek Mills, in connection with which he also carried on the grocery trade, and a little later affected a co-partnership with his nephew, Wesley Baker, in a grocery store at the town of Rockford. The latter he subsequently disposed of to E. E. Hewitt, who still one of the leading business men of the town, but continued the former enterprise with encouraging success until his removal to Cannonsburg, where for five years he conducted a mercantile establishment, which yielded him a liberal income.

In December, 1897, Mr. Baker located at Mill Creek and opened a general store, of which he is still the proprietor, and his business from that time to the present has been satisfactory in every particular. His stock is carefully selected with the object of meeting the demands of the public, and by fair and honorable dealing he has succeeded in building up a large and lucrative local trade besides selling a large amount of goods to customers living many miles in every direction from Mill Creek. Thus far Mr. Baker’s mercantile enterprises have proved uniformly successful, and his present store is easily the leading establishment of the kind in the town.

Mr. Baker was happily married October 7, 1888, choosing for his wife Miss Lillian R. Frink, who was born in South Haven, Mich., May 9, 1867, the sixth child of Walter and Hattie E. (Wilbur) Frink. The father of Mrs. Baker was born in the state of Massachusetts in the year 1832 and became a resident of Michigan sometime in the ‘fifties. The mother, also a native of Massachusetts, was born the same years as her husband. Both now reside at Fremont, Mich.

To Mr. and Mrs. Baker have been born two children—Ethel and Walter J.—students of the Mill Creek school.

Mr. Baker is serving the people of the village and vicinity as post-master and is proving a most efficient and obliging official. He belongs to the K. O. T. M. and I. O. O. F. Lodge of Mill Creek, and politically affiliates with the republican party, being a great admirer of President McKinley and the policy he is at present pursuing. Of Mr. Baker, both as a business man and citizen, much that is commendable might be said. He is a man of superior business capacity and resourceful ability, his resolute purpose and keen discrimination enabling him to carry forward to successful completion whatever he sees fit to undertake. He has made for himself an honorable reputation, is popular in social, business and political circles, and well deserves this tribute to his worth in these pages, devoted to a review of Kent county’s representative men.