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The Baker evolution is complicated and started with the W.H. Baker Company in Lisle, NY (1875-1877), then the W.H. Baker & Co. in Syracuse, which was financed by L.C. Smith and his brother Leroy (1877-1880). Baker and Leroy Smith went to Ithaca, N.Y. and established the Ithaca Gun Company. in 1883.
Baker left Ithaca early 1887 and returned to Syracuse to work with his brother Dr. Ellis Baker at the Syracuse Forging Co., which soon became the Syracuse Forging & Gun Co. They manufactured a hammer gun which was called the "New Baker." When the factory in Syracuse burned, they moved to Batavia and became the Baker Gun & Forging Co. in 1889. At the time of the move W.H. Baker was ill with TB and/or silicosis and they brought in Frank A. Hollenbeck as plant superintendent 1890-1892. W.H. died Sept. 10, 1889. Frank Hollenbeck had three patents granted while he was in Batavia, and two were assigned to the Baker Gun & Forging. Four different guns owed part of their designs to Frank A. Hollenbeck – Baker, Syracuse Arms Co., Baltimore Arms Co. and the Hollenbeck Gun Co. Frank had earlier worked with Baker in Lisle, NY, and later with Baker and L.C. Smith in Syracuse.
The Batavia guns were the 'field grade' models and about 1916, Baker Gun and Forging replaced their Batavia Special/Leader/Damascus line with the Black Beauty. When Baker Gun and Forging sold their gun business to H. & D. Folsom in 1919, it was renamed Baker Gun Co., and Folsom reintroduced the Batavia Leader as a steel barrel gun similar to the old Batavia Special, and added a bit of engraving to the Black Beauty and renamed it the Black Beauty Special. Folsom Baker guns have an F before or after the serial number. Baker Gun Co. was closed in 1933, 44 years after the death of W.H. Baker, and the factory was converted to manufacture automotive parts.
References:
The Double Gun Journal
Volume 3, No. 3, page 62; The guns of the Baker Brothers by Daryl Hallquist
Volume 3, No. 4, page 139; The guns of the Baker Brothers, Part II,
by W.M Furnish and D.D. Hallquist
Volume 9, No.2, page 63; The guns of the Baker Brothers, Part III,
by W.M. Furnish and D.D. Hallquist
Volume 14, No. 4, page 45; The Baker aspect of my Ithaca reality by James T. Tyson
The American Rifleman, June 1968, Page 54, by Kenneth H. Shanks
The Baker Gunner” 1909 reprint is available from Cornell Publications.
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