Richard Baker (merchant)

In 1847, Baker was married to Ellen Whittemore (1827–1896) in Charlestown.^[3] Together, they were the parents of:

• Mary Rich Baker, who married leather dealer Thomas Owen Richardson in 1885.^[9]
• William W. Baker (1851–1882), an invalid.^[10]
• Alice Starr Baker (1859–1880), who died unmarried.^[11]
• Richard Baker III (d. 1896)^[10]

Baker died of tuberculosis at his residence in Boston on January 1, 1875.^[12] After a funeral held at his home in Boston, he was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.^[12] In his will, he left his wife "his residences in Boston and Newport, his furniture, paintings, horses and carriages, and $10,000 at once, and $500,000 in trust--total supposed to amount to about $900,000."^[10] His widow died in Newport in 1896.^[13]

In 1871, Baker purchased 152 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston from the Jarvis Williams estate and moved there from their previous home, 47 Mount Vernon on Beacon Hill. The house had been designed by architect Henry Richards of the firm of Ware and Van Brunt.^[14][a] After his wife's death, the 152 Commonwealth was sold in 1900 to stockbroker William Bowditch Rogers and his wife, Augusta (née Kellogg) Rogers. Today, the entrance is on Dartmouth Street and the house is the home of Chilton Club.^[16]

The Bakers purchased a cottage on Ledge Road, Newport, Rhode Island that had been built by Charles Mixter in 1854. They hired noted architect Richard Morris Hunt to renovate and greatly enlarge the house, which they called Westcliff.^[17] The property, a large asymmetrical stick style home, overlooked Bailey's Beach. After his wife's death in 1896, the cottage was rented out, including to Cornelius Vanderbilt III and his wife, Grace Vanderbilt for a season in 1899.^[18] In 1923, his daughter sold Westcliff which then comprised 10 acres, and was located between the Charles W. Lippitt and Oliver Gould Jennings estates.^[19] The estate was sold to J. Murray Howe of Boston, who transferred it to Henry J. O'Meara of Boston, who tore down the house and developed the estate into several different properties.^[19]

In the 1879, Channing Memorial Church in Newport commissioned artist John La Farge to design what was then the largest stained glass window of his career as a memorial to Baker and his daughter, Alice Starr Baker, who died in 1880.^[11] Baker donated $5,000 to Harvard College upon his death.^[20]

His daughter, Mary Richardson, left a bequest of $1,000,000 for the erection of the Baker Memorial Hospital, to be named after her parents.^[21] The hospital, which was the first "white-collar hospital"^[21] became part of the Massachusetts General Hospital,^[22] before it was torn down.^[23]

Notes

Sources

• Baker, Richard Jr. at the Massachusetts General Hospital