Monday, July 30, 2007

Charles W. Baxter

Charles W. Baxter was born 1836 in Olcott, Newfane Township, Niagara County, New York, probably the son of Isaac (b. 1810) and Mariah (b. 1815).

New York natives Isaac and Mariah were married, presumably in New York where they lived for many years. By 1850 Charles was attending school with his three younger siblings and living with his family in Newfane, Niagara County, where his father worked as a blacksmith.

Sometime before the war broke out Charles left New York and moved westward, eventually settling in western Michigan, probably in Ionia County. (In 1860 there at least two Baxter families living in Ionia county, Michigan: a wealthy farmer named Daniel Baxter, born about 1812 in New York, living with his wife and children in Ronald, Iand Hiram Baxter, born about 1813 in New York, living with his wife and children on a farm in Ionia.)

Charles stood 5’7” with blue eyes, light hair and a light complexion, and was 25 years old and working as a carpenter possibly living in Kent or Ionia County when he enlisted in Company D on May 13, 1861. (Company D was composed in large part of men who came from western Ionia County and Eaton County.) He was reported sick in his quarters in October of 1861 and was soon afterwards discharged for asthma, a condition he allegedly had previous to enlistment, on November 11, 1861, at Fort Lyon, Virginia.

Although he listed St. Johns, Clinton County, Michigan, as his mailing address on his discharge papers, it is not known for certain if Charles returned to Michigan after his discharge from the army. He reentered the service as a Private in Company E, One hundred eighty-eighth Ohio infantry, on January 24, 1865. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to Second Lieutenant. (It is unknown what the original connection was to Ohio.)

Charles was admitted to the Cumberland general Hospital, in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 16, 1865, suffering from fever, and he reportedly remained hospitalized until mid-December. Nevertheless, he was reported as mustered out with his company on September 21, 1865, at Nashville, Tennessee. (In fact, he was probably still in the hospital when his regiment was officially released from federal service.)

Charles probably returned to Ohio after the war, and served as a petty officer -- more specifically as carpenter and quartermaster -- on the revenue cutter Sherman, out of Cleveland, Ohio, from April 1, 1866, until May 1, 1871.

By 1872 Charles was reportedly working in the coal business in Port Huron, Michigan.

At some point Charles settled in Cook County, Illinois, where he was possibly living as early as 1880 but certainly between 1886 and 1892. He was living at the City Hotel, corner of 16th & State Streets in Chicago, Illinois in July of 1890 when he applied for a pension (no. 691267, drawing $12.00 per month by 1901). By 1894 he had returned to New York and was living in Fairville, Wayne County.

Charles may have been living in the Buffalo, New York area when he died on August 21, 1901, and if so is presumably buried there.

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