Baker, Rufus, 1790-1868

Charles Taintor (1762-1854) was born in Colchester, Connecticut. He married Mary Abbe in 1785. Taintor was a merchant, a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, and a collector of internal revenue for the 7th collection district of Connecticut.

Rufus Baker (1790-1868) was born to Joseph Baker and Lucy Devotion in Windham, Connecticut. He married Eliza Taintor, daughter of Charles Taintor, in June 1818. They had two children: Charles Taintor Baker, born in 1822 in Windham County, Connecticut; and William Rufus Baker, born in 1830 at Allegheny Arsenal, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Baker served in the United States Army as first lieutenant assistant deputy commissary of ordnance in 1813, captain of ordnance in 1832, and lieutenant colonel in 1851. In 1818, Baker was ordered to Detroit to establish an arsenal, which he completed in 1819 at a site in Dearborn, Michigan. He resigned from office in 1854, and spent the remaining 14 years of his life largely devoted to the state Democratic Party, running unsuccessfully for Congress. Baker was elected President of Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in 1856, shortly after the company’s manufacturing operations moved from Windsor, Vermont, to Hartford, Connecticut.

From the guide to the Baker-Taintor papers, 1808-1869, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)