Day 50: Joshua Baker

A Mason County native served as governor of Louisiana during the reconstruction period.

According to local historian Ron Bailey, Joshua Baker was born in Mason County on March 23, 1799 to Col. Joshua G. Baker and Susannah Lewis.

Joshua G. Baker was a member of the Mississippi Territory’s legislative council.

In 1810, the Baker family moved to Saint Mary Parish, La.

“Coming from a military family, the young Joshua Baker enrolled in the US Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated from in 1819,” Bailey said. “He then was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Artillery Corps and served as an assistant professor at West Point before resigning in October 1820. In 1821, he decided he wanted to study law, so he studied law at Litchfield in Connecticut.”

Later, Baker was admitted to the bar in Kentucky and Louisiana. In 1822, he returned to Mason County and practiced law before later going back to Louisiana, where he became an engineer.

“Mr. Baker had his hands in many endeavors in Louisiana as he served as a judge in St. Mary Parish from 1829 to 1832,” Bailey said.

Bailey said Baker owned three plantations: the Black Bayou in Terrebonne Parish, Grand River in St. Martin Parish and the Fairfax Plantation in St. Mary Parish

He also invested in steamboat properties that he built in the St. Mary Parish courthouse in 1850.

Later, he served in the state senate and on the state board of public works.

“In a strange political move in his career was that he was elected to Congress from Union-occupied Louisiana in November 1863, but Baker refused to travel to Washington to take his seat,” Bailey said.

According to Bailey, when Baker became governor of Louisiana, it was not through an election but an appointment from Gen. Scott Hancock. This occurred in 1868.

However, he was not governor for a year because his orders were liable to be countermanded by the military due to reconstruction acts, according to Bailey.

He resigned from the position. A special election was held and Republican Henry C. Warmoth was elected.

Baker retired to his daughter’s home in Connecticut. He died there on April 15, 1885.