We recently wrote a post about the early years of Worcester Public Library where we briefly introduced you to our first head librarian, Zephaniah Baker. While Zephaniah Baker isn't as well-known a figure in our library's history compared to Dr. John Green or Samuel Swett Green, he certainly had a number of professions and interests that we felt might be worthy of its own blog post. In addition to being the first head librarian charged with starting and maintaining the public library, Baker was a minister, farmer, bookseller, world traveler, author, and architect! So sit back, relax, and get ready to read about the man the Worcester Evening Gazette described in 1964 as a "screwball genius!"
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| Zephaniah Baker (Photograph by 1890s photographer Herman Schervee of an earlier image of unknown origin), from the American Antiquarian Society |
Zephaniah Baker: The Beginning
So who was Zephaniah Baker? Zephaniah Baker was born July 17, 1815, in Dudley, Massachusetts to Mercy and Jacob Baker, a farmer, and was the third of their five children, the last of whom died in infancy. Zephaniah also had four half-siblings from his mother's first marriage to Zebulon Morris, who died in 1806.
Many of the details of his early life appeared in the autobiography that he wrote in March 1889, a little more than five years before he passed away. While we have not located a copy of this autobiography, it is referenced in a publication by one of our other former head librarians, Robert K. Shaw, Some Notes on Zephaniah Baker, 1815 - 1894, that was read before the Worcester Historical Society in 1936. One of Zephaniah's reminisces of his youth mentions his love of books after a girl he befriended moved away, "She was forgotten, as I got hold of reading, then books became my society, aside of Mother and home" (Shaw, 1936, p. 3). Baker was listed as a student at Nichols Academy studying Greek in 1835. Beloved father Jacob Baker died in 1836 when Zephaniah was 21, as a result of injuries incurred two years prior in an accident.
The Clergyman
Zephaniah Baker took comfort in religion after the death of his father, and later became a Universalist minister where he preached at services throughout New England. He married his first wife, Frances Maria Shedd, (hereafter "Mrs. Baker"), on June 1, 1840 in Chester, Vermont.
Reverend Baker and Mrs. Baker moved around a couple of times in his role as clergyman, including to Connecticut and New York. Not all of his Fifth Universalist Society of New York congregants appreciated his labors. According to the September 20, 1848, issue of the religious newspaper Boston Investigator, one objector declared, "He appears so much like a mechanic!!" (Yes, the quote did in fact have two exclamation marks). Unfortunately, Reverend Baker was "obliged to relinquish [his duties as minister of the New York congregation] on account of bronchial difficulty, whereby speech was denied him" (Lincoln, 1862, p. 338). By 1850, Baker and his wife were living in Akron, Ohio, where his occupation was listed as "Clergyman Uni" (Universalist) in the 1850 federal census.
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| 1850 Federal Census Record Showing Zephaniah and Frances Baker |
Baker and his wife would occasionally write columns or be featured in articles in the Boston-based Trumpet and Universalist magazine when they returned to New England. Baker would also continue to perform weddings and preach even after he became Worcester's head librarian in 1860.
The Bookseller
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| Special Offer, Worcester Daily Spy, January 20, 1855. |
The second bookstore store was short lived. Z. Baker & Co. sold the store at No. 2 Worcester House Block by April, and a couple of months later became enmeshed in a competitor war in the local newspapers with Edward Livermore. Edward Livermore had left Worcester after originally selling his business to Baker in 1854 to build a publishing company in New York City but then started a new book business in September 1855 at the No. 2 Worcester House Block in Worcester (yes, one of the former locations of Z. Baker & Co.!) with J.K. Banister (also spelled Bannister in some newspapers) as his agent. Baker felt Livermore should not have dared compete with his business. Below are three notices published in the Worcester Daily Spy on October 5, 1855. Edward Livermore's Worcester store would last less than a year but he continued to be a publisher in New York thereafter.
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| Correspondence by Z. Baker & Co., Worcester Daily Spy, October 5, 1855 |
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| Correspondence by J. K. Bannister, Worcester Daily Spy, October 5, 1855 |
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| Correspondence by J. K. Banister, Worcester Daily Spy, October 5, 1855 |
By late October 1855, Z. Baker & Co. added a partner and became "Baker, Trumbull & Barnes" but in May of the following year, the partnership was dissolved and the name of the company reverted back to Z. Baker & Co.
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| Advertisement for Z. Baker & Co., Worcester Daily Transcript, July 11, 1857 |
Z. Baker & Co. existed for two more years, with the addition and then dissolution of a copartnership with William H. Sanford in 1857. William H. Sanford took over the business and acquired the books and other merchandise from Z. Baker & Co. in November 1857.
The final references to Baker & Co.'s bookselling business in the local newspapers occurred in 1859 and 1860, when Z. Baker and his former business partner, Moses Barnes, were sued by John Marcy over an outstanding loan of $1000, even though Barnes claimed the note was a forgery. The jury of the second trial eventually found for Marcy.
The Author, Publisher, and Builder
Of course, Zephaniah Baker wasn't only interested in merely selling books during that time. In 1856, Baker wrote and published a book entitled, The Cottage Builder's Manual, that consisted of his thoughts, plans, and specifications for constructing cottages. Baker was the architect of several round houses during the height of that architectural style's popularity, including 12-sided and 8-sided structures, at least one of which still exists today in Dudley! The Cottage Builder's Manual is currently available to read electronically in the public domain at the following Google Books link. In 1857, Baker wrote another book about building houses entitled, Modern House Builder, From the Log Cabin and Cottage to the Mansion. This book is also available in the public domain via the following Google Books link.
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| Architectural Plan for a 12-Sided Cottage, from The Cottage Builder's Manual, 1856 |
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| Google Streetview Image from 2026 of a House Built by Zephaniah Baker |
Zephaniah Baker would also publish other books throughout the years. For instance he would publish an English translation of the Chinese Classics as translated by James Legge of the London Missionary Society. Of course, English publishers in London felt that only they had the right to publish an English language translation by Legge, but it seems that Baker's publication was allowed to occur in the absence of international copyright law.
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| The Chinese Classics, translated by James Legge and published by Z. Baker |
The Head Librarian
February 17, 1860 brought a new career for Zephaniah Baker: first head librarian of the Worcester Free Public Library. You can read more about his tenure at the library in our blog post but some highlights during this time include officially opening the library in its temporary Bank Block Building location; organizing and maintaining the library in its new Elm Street building location, along with Miss Callina Barnes as first assistant and his wife, Mrs. Baker, as the second assistant; and instituting several changes, including opening the library's first reading room.
The Second Annual Report of the Directors of the Free Public Library indicated that, "Mr. Baker's almost intuitive knowledge of books has been of great service" (p. 4). Zephaniah Baker was also generous with his own books and his desire to put needed books into the hands of patrons. In fact, as he wrote in The Eighth Annual Report of the Directors of the Free Public Library, "I have loaned freely from my private collection when the Library did not have the book wanted. It has been my endeavor to meet each and every call for books as expeditiously as possible, and in the exact spirit of the request" (p.15). Zephaniah Baker would be in charge of the library until 1871.
Of course, the Civil War occurred during Baker's tenure. Both Bakers were involved in the abolitionist movement, with the head librarian writing a letter to the editor of the Worcester Daily Spy supporting the fight to be "free of this accursed rebellion and the curse (slavery) that has bred it."
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| Editor Spy, Worcester Daily Spy, January 18, 1864 |
The World Traveler
Zephaniah Baker took a two-month trip abroad without his wife towards the end of his tenure as head librarian to visit libraries and acquire books to add to the library's collection. He also wrote about his experiences in Europe in several Worcester Evening Gazette and Aegis and Gazette columns, where he cantankerously complained about the English and their prolific use of profanity. He seemed to love France and Switzerland, but was not a fan of Scotland (specifically the Scottish people). He also mentioned that his birds accompanied him on his voyage and complained about the food on his passage back to the United States on one of the Anchor Lines steamships. He also seemed to despise his short stay in Liege, Belgium, stating, "Our train left us for the night at Liege, and for a long time, I was quite sure we had been dropped in Sodom" (Aegis and Gazette, April 23, 1870).
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| Passport Application for Zephaniah Baker, June 1869 |
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| Notes on Foreign Travel, Worcester Evening Gazette, December 6, 1869 |
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| Notes on Foreign Travel, Aegis & Gazette, January 22, 1870 |
The Farmer
In addition to all of his other activities, Baker had a farm in Dudley, where he raised horses and showed some of them at exhibitions and related agricultural shows. He was also involved in the Dudley Farmers' Club and served on the executive board for a number of years after his retirement from the library. The 1870 death of one of his horses, a massive horse weighing 2,250 pounds known as Clydesdale Tom, was so noteworthy that it was mentioned in the Worcester Daily Spy! Eleven months later in 1871, the papers reported that Baker intended to have the skeleton of Clydesdale Tom properly mounted as a natural history specimen. We're not sure what happened to the remains in the interim between Clydesdale Tom's death and the mounting of the skeleton, or where the mounted remains were finally displayed.
The Retiree
Zephaniah Baker announced to Worcester that he was starting up his bookselling business again in December 1870, a couple of weeks before it was announced that he would no longer serve as head librarian of the Worcester Free Public Library. It appears that this business located at 3 Lincoln House Block was short-lived.
Zephaniah Baker and Mrs. Baker* were living at different addresses according to the 1870 federal census and divorced presumably in the early 1870s. Divorce was a somewhat uncommon practice in those days, although not rare. They never had any children. Oddly enough (or maybe not so odd since we've definitely seen errors in vital records while doing local history or genealogy research in the past), her death record in 1891 indicates that she was the widow of Zephaniah, even though she died before him.
He later married his second wife, Sarah Dwight on April 27, 1873. He was 57 and she was 35 at the time of their marriage and they also never had any children. According to a letter by Mr. D. H. Dwight, a cousin of Sarah, "[Zephaniah] was a fluent and interesting talker, of generous disposition and well liked by the young people; a brainy man, but rather eccentric" (Shaw, 1936, p. 24).
As we previously mentioned, Zephaniah Baker continued to write in his later years. In addition to his autobiography, Baker authored a chapter on the history of Dudley in the two volume book, History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published in 1879.
Zephaniah Baker died at the age of 79 from stomach cancer on November 24, 1894, in Southbridge. He was buried in the Baker family plot at the Village Cemetery in Dudley. Sarah Dwight Baker would die in 1919. Randomly, the Worcester Evening Gazette in 1964 claimed that Baker built a carriage with a round body and that when he died, his mortal remains were left to Harvard College. We have not seen any proof to back up these statements so we'd take them with a grain of salt.
Conclusion
So there you have it: biographical sketches of our complicated but multitalented first head librarian, Zephaniah Baker. We hope you've you learned a something new today. For more information about the history of the Worcester Public Library, we invite you to view our older blog posts at the following link.
P.S.
*Honestly, we found Frances Baker's life fascinating, especially her independent life where she was a teacher as well as a lecturer at the Worcester Natural History Society after she separated from Zephaniah. We'll have to share more about her in a future blog!
Sources:
Baker, Z. (1856). The Cottage Builder's Manual. Z. Baker & Co.
Baker, Z. (1857). Modern House Builder, From the Log Cabin and Cottage to the Mansion. Higgins, Bradley, and Dayton.
Baker, Z. (1864, January 18). "Editor Spy." Worcester Daily Spy, p. 2.
Baker, Z. (1869, December 6). "Notes on Foreign Travel." Worcester Evening Gazette, p. 1.
Baker, Z. (1870, January 13). "Notes on Foreign Travel." Worcester Evening Gazette, p. 1.
Baker, Z. (1870, January 22). "Notes on Foreign Travel." Aegis and Gazette, p. 4.
Baker, Z. (1870, March 5). "Notes on Foreign Travel." Aegis and Gazette, p. 5.
Baker, Z. (1870, April 23). "Notes on Foreign Travel." Aegis and Gazette, p. 3.
"Baker's Edition of 'The Chinese Classics.'" (1866, June 15). Worcester Daily Spy, p. 2.
"County News." (1871, November 4). Worcester Daily Spy, p. 1.
"Court Record." (1859, April 20). Worcester Daily Transcript, p. 2.
"Death of a Mammoth Horse." (1870, December 12). Worcester Daily Spy, p. 1.
"Dissolution of Copartnership." (1856, May 27). Worcester Daily Spy, p. 3.
"Our Rich Men." (1857, August 31). Worcester Daily Transcript, p. 2.
Free Public Library. (1862). The Second Annual Report of the Free Public Library, Worcester.
Grow, J. F. (1964, January 20). "Good Evening." Worcester Evening Gazette, p. 7.
Lincoln, W. (1862). History of Worcester, Massachusetts from Its Earliest Settlement to September 1836. Charles Hersey.
Shaw, R. (1936). Some Notes on Zephaniah Baker, 1815 - 1894.
"Supreme Court." (1860, April 18). Massachusetts Spy, p. 2.
The Worcester Almanac, Directory, and Business Advertiser for 1855. (1855). Henry J. Howland.
Z. Baker & Co. (1855, April 6). "Agents! Book Agents!!" Worcester Daily Journal, p. 3.
Z. Baker & Co. (1855, October 23). "Copartnership Notice." Worcester Transcript, p. 3.
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