Biography of James McNair Baker, Lake City, Columbia County, FL

File contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:  Nancy Rayburn (naev@earthlink.net).

USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE:  These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for 
profit or publication by any other organization or persons.  Persons or organizations 
desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the 
legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof 
of this consent.  The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the 
file permanently for free access.

Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

******************************************************************************************

Transcribed from:  The History of Florida:  Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. 
II, page 34, 1923.

BAKER, Hon. JAMES McNAIR, who served as a member of the Senate of the Confederate State and 
for many years was a member of the Circuit and Supreme Courts of Florida, is one of the first 
named among the great public men of this state in the last century.

He was born in Robeson County, North Carolina, July 20, 1822, the sixth son and eighth child 
of ARCHIBALD and CATHERINE BAKER.  He was thoroughly prepared for his chosen profession, 
graduating in 1844 from Davidson College in North Carolina. He practiced for a time at 
Lumberton, North Carolina, but on account of failing health, due to an attack of typhoid 
fever, he sought the milder climate of Florida.  He came to Florida on horseback and first 
practiced at old Columbus, then at the head of navigation on the Sewannee (sic) River.  A 
short time later he removed to a town then known as Alligator, and he was largely instrumental 
in securing its change of name to Lake City.  Here his work as a lawyer brought him a 
reputation that rapidly spread over the state, and he became a recognized leader of the bar. 
About 1852 he was made state's attorney for the Sewannee (sic) Circuit, and in the same year 
he was delegate to the Whig National Convention at Baltimore, where WINFIELD SCOTT was 
nominated for president.  This nomination was strenuously opposed by the Florida delegation. 
General SCOTT had been in command in Florida for a time during the Indian war and had made 
himself extremely unpopular with the people of the state.  Up to that time Florida had been 
one of the doubtful states, but the nomination of General SCOTT turned it definitely from 
the whig party.  In 1856 Mr. BAKER was nominated by the whigs for Congress, and he stumped 
the entire state, traveling on horseback.  In 1859 he was elected judge of the Sewannee 
(sic) Circuit.

In the year he was elected to the bench he married, at Fayetteville, North Carolina, Miss 
FANNY GILCHRIST, daughter of ADAM and MARY GILCHRIST.  During the heated political contest 
of 1860 Judge Baker supported the Bell and Everett ticket.  While opposed to secession, he 
went with the state, and in 1861 was elected by the Legislature as a member of the Confederate 
State Senate for the short term.  In 1863 he was reelected, and served throughout the war as
senator from Florida, his home being in Richmond, Virginia.

Senator BAKER returned to Florida after the war and in 1866, upon election of DAVID S. WALKER 
as governor, he was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court.  He was on the Supreme 
Bench until 1868, when as a result of reconstruction measures he resigned and took up private 
practice.  In the following year he earned his greatest reputation as a lawyer in the 
litigation growing out of the disposition of the lands of the internal improvement fund of 
Florida and the bonds and other indebtedness contracted by the railroads built under the terms 
of the act of 1855, creating that fund.

After the war Judge BAKER was a democrat, and he served as a member of the executive committee 
of the state in 1876.  He was prominent in redeeming the state from the terrors and misgovernment
of the reconstruction period.  In 1881, at almost unanimous request of the bar of his circuit, 
he accepted the appointment of judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit.  He was appointed by 
Governor Bloxham, and in 1885 was reappointed by Governor Perry.  As a result of failing 
health Judge BAKER resigned from the bench in 1890, and he lived quietly until his death on 
June 20, 1892, when almost seventy years of age and after nearly fifty years of activity as
a citizen, lawyer and statesman of Florida.  He was an elder of the Presbyterian Church.