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WILLIAM B. BAKER, lumber merchant, corner Wabash Railroad and Jefferson street, and proprietor of planing mill on Ninth street, keeps in yard a large stock of building and finishing lumber, shingles, lath, sash, doors, blinds, mouldings, lime, plaster, sewer-pipe, etc., in which he has a large retail and some wholesale trade. His sales for 1880, counting lumber by the foot, and lath and shingles by the thousand, footed up between three and four million, besides those of other articles. His mill is a frame building erected in 1872, thirty by fifty-five feet, and equipped with machinery and appliances for doing all kinds of planing, sawing and lumber yard work, with a capacity for dressing twenty-five thousand feet per day.
Mr. Baker was born in Connecticut in 1843; came to Springfield, Illinois, in 1852; began learning the machinist trade when thirteen years of age, and continued in that business until he went into the lumber trade, in company with J. H. Schuck, as Schuck & Baker, in 1865. At the end of twelve years he became sole owner, and has since carried on business alone. January 1, 1881, he formed a partnership with Mr. Hintze, of Chicago, and established a wholesale business in sash, doors, blinds and mouldings, on Lumber street in that city, which is doing an extensive trade. In June, 1861, Mr. Baker enlisted in the United States Service as a member of Company I, Seventh Illinois Infantry; served three years and was mustered out in August, 1854. In December of that year was united in marriage with Miss Adelia, youngest daughter of James L. Hill, of Springfield. They are the parents of one son, Ralph Norton Baker, thirteen years old.