Addison Elton Baker
Riverside Cemetery, Adams County, Colorado
COLORADO PIONEER
Addison Elton Baker
(1818-1884)
Addison Baker was born near Rochester, New York, March 24 (26?), 1818, married Charlotte Baker. Addison, wife Charlotte, and son Nathan Addison Baker, b. 1843, New York, removed to Racine, Wisconsin. The family afterward removed to Omaha, Nebraska, where they lived for about a year.
Traveling in two wagons, the Baker family left Omaha on February 22, 1860 and arrived in Denver, on March 15, 1860. Addison, farmed on 25 acres of land that now lies under and to the south of the Colfax viaduct. This was a favorite stopping place and camping ground of General John C. Fremont, Kit Carson and other pioneers scouts and pioneers.
On April 30, 1932, a bronze table was place on the 14th Street viaduct at the mouth of Cherry Creek bearing the following inscription: "Baker's Springs, 250 ft. South." Marked by the D. A. R. Peace Pipe Chapter. Baker's Springs was the source of Denver's first water supply.
The Baker family is enumerated in the first 1860 census of the Colorado area while part of the Territory of Kansas, Arapahoe County: A Baker, 42, Ann Baker, 39, Nathan, 17, and Hellen, 9.
Source: McGrath, Maria Davies, "The Real Pioneers of Colorado," The Denver Museum, 1934. Denver Public Library, Western History & Genealogy, retyped by Jane P. Ohl, volunteer, October 2001.