Alberti Baker, the present district attorney for Schoharie county, has been practicing law in Schoharie for the past eighteen years, during which he has risen to a prominent place in the profession. Mr. Baker is one of the men Schoharie claims as a native son, his birth having occurred in Gilboa, February 5, 1869. His parents were also natives of this state; the father, Graudus Baker, was born in the town of Blenheim, Schoharie county, and the mother, Mary (Cole) Baker was born in Gilboa. The father farmed in this section all of his life and died in February, 1909. Mr. Baker was but five years old when his mother was claimed by death in March, 1875.
On his father's farm Alberti Baker spent his boyhood and youth, gaining his education in the public schools of the county. At the age of eighteen he became a teacher and during the nine terms that he presided over the schoolroom rose to the position of principal at Lexington and at Prattsville, Greene county. Mr. Baker's ambitions were not in the educational field and he began reading law in the office of Krum & Grant of Schoharie at the age of twenty. For some time he alternated his teaching with his legal study and on December of 1893 he was admitted to practice before the bar of New York state. The young attorney commenced the active practice of his profession in Greene county, at Oak Hill and Coxsackie, remaining in those two places for twelve years. Desirous of securing a wider field of opportunity, he came to Schoharie in 1906 to open the office he has maintained here ever since. In November of 1923 Mr. Baker was elected district attorney for the county for the term of three years and is now filling that office.
On the 22d of October, 1896, Mr. Baker was united in marriage to Miss Nona Vroman, daughter of Byron O. and Minerva (Ellarson) Vroman, natives of this county. Through her mother's family Mrs. Baker is directly descended from David Ellarson of Revolutionary fame, while the Vromans are numbered among the old families of this section who date back to the pre-Revolutionary days. Mrs. Baker is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and librarian of the local chapter. Her father was a wagon maker by trade, but in middle life he gave up his trade and spent the rest of his days in agricultural pursuits. He died in March, 1911, after having survived his wife for thirty years, as she passed away in March, 1881. The Bakers have three children: Harold V., born December 27, 1897, who is a lawyer by profession; Gladys M., born May 7, 1902; and Richard Cleveland, born September 23, 1903. The older son is a graduate of the Albany Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1919. He is now employed in Albany in the legal department of the Hartford Indemnity Company. The younger son is a junior at Harvard, where he is taking a course leading to the A. B. degree. He is a graduate of the Schoharie high school and the Albany Boys Academy. Miss Baker is a graduate of the local high school and now holds a position in the library of the General Electric Company at Schenectady.
Politically Mr. Baker ranks as a democrat with independent tendencies. Like many of the more thoughtful citizens of today he finds that the party platforms do not adequately represent his views on many public questions and prefers not to be bound too closely in his actions by considerations of party loyalty, for he feels that the interests of any group should ever be kept subordinate to the general good. He is a Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias. In the Schoharie Community church he is regarded as one of the most dependable workers. At present he is secretary of the board of management of the church and takes a prominent part in the work of the Sunday school. That Mr. Baker's life in Schoharie has been well spent is indicated by the number of friends he has won among its substantial citizens and the general confidence in his integrity and ability expressed by the people as a whole when they elected him to the responsible post of district attorney. It is to men like Mr. Baker that American cities and towns owe their advancement and prosperity.