Family
Histories of Coleman County, Texas
The Jesse
Kirkland Baker Family
by Baker
Rudolph
From A History of Coleman County
and Its People, 1985
edited by Judia and Ralph Terry, and
Vena Bob Gates - used by permission
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Jesse Kirkland
Baker was born near Crawford, Georgia,
December 7, 1867, died in Coleman, Texas,
July 27, 1953. He graduated from a
military branch of the University of
Georgia, located at Dahlonega, Georgia,
received his law license in Arkansas in
1890. He moved to Coleman shortly
thereafter, where he practiced law for 60
years with the exception of a three year
period which he served as an Associate
Justice to the Court of Criminal Appeals in
Austin. In Coleman, he first officed
with Wilbur Brown, a pioneer Coleman
lawyer. Later, he was associated with
Judge J. O. Woodward, then Walter Woodward,
then W. Marcus Weatherred and later with his
three sons, Alfred Kirkland, W. B., and
Dillard Baker.
Jesse married
Willie Woodward, daughter of Judge J. O.
Woodward (see Woodward) of Coleman in
1897. They had eight children, namely
- Alfred Kirkland II, deceased; Frances Lee,
wife of Edgar G. Lewis of Lubbock, both
deceased; Lavonia, wife of H. H. Howell,
deceased, Paradise, California; Eloise, wife
of A. B. Williams, Sr, both deceased, of San
Antonio; Helene, wife of James H. Thornhill,
deceased, of Dallas; William Brawner,
deceased, husband of Elizabeth Murchison of
Houston; Dillard Woodward, husband of Mary
Thomas of Houston: and Ima Georgia, wife of
Fred B. Rudolph of Coleman. Mrs. J. K.
Baker died in 1951.
Judge Baker was a
Mason (Master of Coleman Lodge #496 in 1900,
as was his son, Alfred Kirkland, in 1939), a
charter member of the Suez Temple of the
Shrine in San Angelo and of the Brownwood
Commandry of Knight's Templar. He was
a member of the Texas and American bar
Association.
The grandfather of
Judge J. K. Baker, Alfred Kirkland Baker,
was born November 24, 1810, and died, July
17, 1875. The Bakers lived around
Auburn, Bowling Green, and Hopkinsville,
Kentucky. Alfred Kirkland Baker was a
close friend of President Andrew Jackson,
who fought a duel with a Charles Dickerson
on the farm of A. K. Baker. William
Durham Baker, father of Judge lesse Kirkland
Baker, served in the Confederate Cavalry
under the command of General Joe
Wheeler. He was thrice wounded and was
in Georgia when the war ended. There
he met and married Lavonia Brawner, daughter
of Jesse Brawner. He died in August,
1808, leaving his widow and the one son,
Jesse Kirkland Baker.
(Images to be
added)
Jesse K. and
Willie Baker on honeymoon in Georgia
[1897]
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