John Harris Baker

John Harris Baker

John Harris Baker (born February 28, 1832 in Parma , Monroe County , New York , †  October 21, 1915 in Goshen , Indiana ) was an American lawyer and politician . Between 1875 and 1881 he represented the state of Indiana in the US House of Representatives ; he then became a federal judge in the federal district court for the Indiana district.

Career

John Baker was the older brother of US Senator Lucien Baker (1846-1907) from Kansas . In his childhood he came with his parents to what would later become Fulton County in Ohio , where he attended public schools. He then taught himself for two years as a teacher before continuing his own training at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware . After a subsequent law degree in Adrian ( Michigan ) and his admission to the bar in 1857, he began to work in this profession in Goshen (Indiana).

Politically, Baker was a member of the Republican Party . In 1862 he was elected to the Indiana Senate. However, since he was working as a state notary at the time, he was soon expelled from this body again because the Indiana constitution prohibited the exercise of two state offices at the same time. In the congressional election of 1874 Baker was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the 13th  constituency of Indiana , where he succeeded William Williams on March 4, 1875 . After two re-elections, he was able to complete three legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1881 .

In 1880, Baker declined to run again. After leaving the US House of Representatives, he practiced again as a lawyer in Goshen. In 1888 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago , where Benjamin Harrison was nominated as a presidential candidate. Between 1892 and 1904 he was a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Indiana ; here he succeeded William Allen Woods , who had moved to the federal appeals court . After that, he retired. He died in Goshen on October 21, 1915.

Web links

• John Harris Baker in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• John Harris Baker in the database of Find a Grave (English)