Samuel L. Baker
Samuel L. Baker was born on 14 October 1849, by his death certificate, the son of Cornelius H. Baker, called Hick, and Socia Hammon. The certificate gives his birthplace as Kentucky; the censuses of 1880 and 1900 say Virginia, and in 1900 he gave his birth as January 1849. In 1850 his parents were farming in Russell County, Virginia.
On 15 September 1866, in Johnson County, Kentucky, he married Frances Jane Spears, a Johnson County girl of about eighteen, the daughter of Wiley M. and Elizabeth Spears. Their first son, Ira, was born about 1868, and John about 1870. By 1880 they were farming on Upper Elkhorn Creek in Pike County, Kentucky, the head of the Kentucky River under Pine Mountain, with Samuel's parents in the next household. The census taker that June wrote down Samuel Baker, 31, a farmer born in Virginia to Virginia parents, Frances J., 31, and six sons: Ira, 12, John W., 10, Cornelius H., 6, Wily M., 5, Jesse, 2, and Thomas C., four months old. Cornelius was named for Samuel's father and Wily for Frances's.
In the 1880s the family went over the mountain to the Clintwood country of Dickenson County, Virginia, where Creed was born about 1882. Frances died there of fever on 9 July 1891, aged 42, and Samuel himself reported her death. In June 1889 his son John had married Frances Vanover, and in September 1890 his son Marion married her half sister Elizabeth.
On 8 January 1896, in Dickenson County, Samuel married again. He gave his age as 48 and his parents as Cornelious and Socia Baker. His bride was Martha A. Vance, 30, the daughter of Abner and Nancy Vance. In June 1900 the household in Clintwood district held Samuel, 51, Martha, 38, George W., 14, Socia J., 8, Nancy M., 4, and Cordelia, 21, and his widowed mother Socia, 74. A daughter Nancy M., born in 1896, was entered in the county's birth register as the child of Samuel L. and Martha A. Baker.
In his last years Samuel was back on Upper Elkhorn Creek in Pike County, at Shelby Gap. He died there of dropsy on 1 December 1917. His certificate, filed by Mary Baker of Hylton, names his father Hick Baker and his mother Socie Hammon, both born in North Carolina. He was buried on 2 December, and the undertaker was his grandson Brice Baker of Shelby Gap. His son John is buried in the Shelby Gap Cemetery.
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Cite: Heirology, "Samuel L. Baker (1849-1917)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/samuel-l-baker-1849-1917-c74520.