Ebenezer Baker

Ebenezer Baker (1829-1902), usually called Eben, was a Billerica butcher and one of its selectmen for ten years in the 1880s. According to Hazen he was born on May 16, 1829, in England, a son of John and Sarah Baker, who brought their children to Billerica and lived on Andover Street; his father died in 1844. His sister Mary married William S. Gleason. Eben married Elizabeth Ann Boynton of Bedford, New Hampshire, and in 1883 he was living on Andover Street opposite his father's old place. Their children included John Henry, born in 1859, and Roscoe Chase, born in 1877.

He represented the district in the General Court in 1881 and was elected a selectman the next year. Through most of the 1880s he served with Coburn S. Smith and George F. Colson, his name standing first on their reports, and like the selectmen before him he was also an assessor and an Overseer of the Poor, for which he was paid $275 a year. His own trade ran through the town accounts: month after month the Town Farm paid "E. Baker" for meat, and sold him its calves, cows and hides. He also did practical work for the town, repairing the iron and middle bridges with hired help in 1884 and walking the town lines with his fellow selectmen at the perambulation of the bounds.

After he left the board in the early 1890s he went on with his business. The jury list of 1897 gives his occupation as butcher, and the cattle inspector's report for 1898 named "Eben Baker's" as one of the two slaughter houses in town, which together killed 137 cows, 373 calves and 79 hogs that year.

Ebenezer Baker died on April 28, 1902, aged 72 years, 11 months and 12 days.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 6: Baker family; Eben Baker born 1829, butcher on Andover Street
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 305: list of representatives (Ebenezer Baker, 1881)
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 307: list of selectmen (Eben Baker, 1882)
4. Billerica Town Report 1885, bridge expenses (E. Baker and help, work on iron and middle bridges)
5. Billerica Town Report 1885, financial statement signed by Ebenezer Baker as Selectman
6. Billerica Town Report 1886, miscellaneous expenses (E. Baker, perambulating town lines)
7. Billerica Town Report 1897, jury list (Ebenezer Baker, butcher)
8. Billerica Town Report 1899, cattle inspector's report (Eben Baker's slaughter house)
9. Billerica Town Report 1902, deaths recorded in 1901-02 (Ebenezer Baker, April 28, aged 72)