[Included with David's letter is a note or draft in Rev. Thomas Baker's handwriting.]

My Dear Father,

I dare say you will be astonished to hear that I have made tracks for the States in some unceremonious a manner. But I trust the step is a good one at least it cannot be worse than staying in Brantford for $200.00 per annum. Dodgson and my self [sic] have gone into partnership so that has Enabled me travel pretty comfortably he having raised a pretty good amount of Cash.

Should You think adviseable [sic] to write me please address me at Detroit as that will be my first stopping place. If you write do so immediately.

I am

Dear Father Your aff. Son

D.B. [David Bogue] Baker¹

Rev. Thos. Baker, Brantford

[Enclosed Note, written by Rev. Thomas Baker]

Received at the post office Friday June 6 about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Saw David for the last time in Creight's shop on Saturday afternoon May 31--1851, had not been the least surprised of his leaving us as he had informed me Thursday morning previous when telling him that it was reported he was going to leave with Dodgson for the states he said he was not, that Dodgson was going and when he would get him a situation in a Drug store at 200 dollars a year he was to let him know--Also upon asking if there was any fault with Mr. [?] he said that there was not a [?] of fault with him--that this like John's² took me altogether by surprise--thus in little more than six months two of my sons have left me without consulting me or even bidding me farewell--may the Lord lay not this sin to their Charge.

[Text written across note]: Rcd. Tho. Baker, Brantford

¹ David Bogue Baker, born in 1829, was the second youngest child born to Rev. Thomas Baker and his first wife Sarah. In June of 1851 he wrote to his father stating that he was moving to Detroit. By 1855, David was living in Mankato, Minnesota and had acquired a claim of land which was apparently constituted by law through "the puting [sic] up of a house and marking out 160 acres of land lying in a square body" (W2906). He suggested his that his older brother James Alfred Baker would do well to move to the region and begin farming (for more on James Alfred, see W2960).

However, as of December 1856, David had been forced off his claim by the resettlement of the native Winnabago peoples to that location and he launched a suit to recover his losses. In an attempt to keep himself and his business partner, Mr. Dodgson, employed, David began to collect specimens of birds, hoping to be able to give them to a museum or other centre of science but this failed for lack of funds. He was planning an expedition into the Canadian north when he died from tuberculosis on April 11, 1857.

² John Orange Baker (1823-?) became a medical doctor and was living in Seattle in 1882.