DEATH OF JAMES H. BAKER, Pettis Co., MO
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News story, KANSAS CITY STAR, 13 Dec. 1907
Reprinted with permission of Curt Floerchinger of the K.C. Star.

                        A FALL FROM A TRESTLE FATAL

The Death of James H. Baker, Wire Chief of The Missouri Pacific

    James H. Baker, 58 years old, wire chief of the Missouri
Pacific Telegraph System, died last night at the Missouri Pacific
Hospital from injuries received Monday in a fall from a trestle
near Leeds, Mo.
    With R. A. Land, a lineman, Baker was making a short
inspection trip on a railroad velocipede. While going around a
curve the machine left the tracks and fell thirty feet from the
trestle. Land received only a few bruises and was able to go to
his home in Hallowell, Kas. Tuesday morning.
    Baker had lived in Sedalia Mo. more than twenty years and had
been employed by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company thirty
four years. His son, George Baker, and the widow arrived in
Kansas City last night after they were notified of the death.
Another son, Benjamin, lives in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The body
was taken to Carroll-Davidson's undertaking rooms, where the
coroner will hold an autopsy this morning.
++++++++
    James H. Baker was born in 1848 in Shelby Co., Indiana, a son
of George and Eliza (Hollis) Baker. The family moved to Page Co.,
Iowa in 1850, then to Kingsville, Johnson Co. Missouri in 1868.
James H. Baker was married to Selena Leedy, who died in
Sedalia on 3 Aug. 1929 and was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.
   He began his career as a telegraph line repairman in 1873 in
Johnson Co., Mo. , and worked his way up to head of the
department in thirty four years of service.
   The funeral was held at the family residence at 222 E. Fourth
Street in Sedalia. It was attended by E.A. Chenery,
Superintendent of Telegraph for the Missouri Pacific, T. W.
Jackson, representing a Chicago electrical firm, and J. C. Brown,
General Foreman from Little Rock, Arkansas. Pall bearers were
James T. Montgomery, Edward Shultz, Harry Mayer, L. C.
Redmond, William Harris and T. J. Higgins, a lineman from
Wichita, Kansas. Every lineman on the branches west of St. Louis
attended. The Rev. S. S. Martin officiated and burial was in the
City Cemetery.
James R. Baker, Jr.