Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/10

 2 William D. Fenton. in Pekin, Illinois, and one sister, Mrs. Thomas Jerome, born in Philadelphia, and who lived at Sausalito, California. In 1832, Baker enlisted as a private soldier in the Black Hawk War, and before the eonclnsion of the war attained the rank of major. He was admitted to the bar in Greene County, Illinois, where he commenced the practice of his profession, and later removed to Springfield, in the year 1835. At that time Springfield had a population of about fifteen hundred people, and Baker was under twenty-five years of age. Mr. Joseph Wallace, in his ''Sketch of the Life and Public Services of Edward Dickinson Baker, ' ' pub- lished at Springfield, Illinois, in 1870, speaking of Mr. Baker, at this time, says: "At this time he was in the twenty-fifth year of his age, and in appearance not remarkably prepossessing; his dress comported well with the straightened condition of his fi- nances. He wore a dilapidated hat of an antique pattern, and a suit of homespun jeans loosely and carelessly thrown about him; the pants being some inches too short, exposed to view a pair of coarse, woolen socks, whilst his pedal appendages were encased in broad, heavy brogans, such as were commonly worn by the stalwart backwoodsmen of the day. Nevertheless, his step was elastic, his figure neat and trim, and the features of his face regular and pleasing to the eye/' His career began under influences calculated to develop all his natural talents. He was the associate of Stephen T. Lo- gan, Albert T, Bledsoe, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Doug- las, Lyman Trumbull, and other men, all of whom in later years achieved national distinction. His career began and ended in the public service. He was a member of the House of Representatives of the State of Illinois in 1837 ; of the State Senate in 1840-1844; was elected a Representative to the twenty-ninth Congress from Illinois as a Whig, serving from December 1, 1845, until December 30, 1846, when he resigned to accept a commission as Colonel of the Fourth Regiment of Illinois Volunteers in the war with Mexico. He participated in the siege of Vera Cruz, was the commander