Reuben Willis Knickerbocker

GEDCOM Note

Age: 76 Race: Caucasian Gender: male Cause of Death: appendicitis Place of Death: 231 Crutchter st. Date of Death: 14 Dec 1903 Date Filed:26 Dec 1903B: 10 Mar 1827 Pavilion, Genesee County, New York D: 14 Dec 1903 Dallas, Dallas County, Texas M: 17 Jul 1867 Baton Rouge, Louisiana Reuben Willis KNICKERBOCKER· _FA1: 10 MAR 1827 Born in Pavilion, Genesee County, NY · _FA2: 1849 Attended Union College in New York · _FA3: 1851 State Normal School, Albany, NY · _FA4: 1852 Decided to make home in New Orleans · _FA5: 1854 Directed college in Natchez, MS · _FA6: 1857 Admitted to bar in Mississippi · _FA7: 1859 Admitted to bar in Louisiana · _FA8: 1859 Married Sophia Evatt · _FA9: 1862 First wife, Sophia, died · _FA10: 1865 Served in Confederacy in Civil War · _FA11: 17 JUL 1867 Married Emma Larguier · _FA12: 1880 Moved to New Orleans to practice law · _FA13: 14 DEC 1903 Died of appendicitis in Dallas, TX · Note: Reuben Willis Baker was born in Pavilion, New York, a son of a farmer. After attending Union College in 1850, for reasons unknown he changed his surname to Knickerbocker, which had supposedly been his fathers birth name. In his fathers will probated in 1876, Reuben is listed as Reuben S. Baker of Baton Rouge. Reuben had moved to New Orleans in 1852, arriving as a train engineer. He studied law, served briefly in the Confederacy during the War Between the States, and was married twice. Reuben practiced law in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, retiring to Crowley, LA, before 1900. He also was a judge and a prosecutor. He was known as a tough taskmaster to his five sons. He sent them each to work early in their lives. Hubert sold products on trains when he was 12 years old. The boys were tossed in the river to sink or swim. One grandson remembered how his father told of being kicked off a streetcar by his father because he didnt have the fare. A strapping man in otherwise good health, Reuben suffered from appendicitis, but physicians refused to remove his appendix because of his age (76). Thus he died on Dec. 14, 1903 in Dallas, Texas, where he was living with his son, Percy R. Knickerbocker, pastor of the Methodist church there. Reuben was raised as an Episcopalian and switched to Methodism when he married Emma. It was their compromise for she had been a Presbyterian. Reuben is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Dallas where his sons, Percy and Hubert, and daughter-in-law, Julia, also are laid to rest.