WILLIAM BAKER was born about 1798, in Sevier county, Tennessee. He came to St. Clair county, Illinois, when a young man. Phoebe Neeley was born December 14, 1799, near Nashville, Tennessee, and was taken to St. Clair county, Illinois, when she was a young woman. William Baker and Phoebe Neeley were married about 1818, near Belleville. They had one child born there, and the family moved to Horse creek, in what became Sangamon county, in the spring of 1819, in what is now Cotton Hill township, where seven children were born. They then moved to a mill on the north fork of the Sangamon river, three miles north of Rochester. William Baker went to Texas previous to 1844, started from there to California about 1852, and died on the road. Mrs. Phoebe Baker died, August, 1861, in Rochester.