I have found no traces of Joshua Baker in the earliest records of Lancaster County, founded in 1728. His first visible presence is in 1742, when a road order speaks of “Joshua Baker’s plantation.”1454 The following year, a indenture records a grant to Joshua Baker of land on King Street in the Town of Lancaster, conditioned upon his building a house within two years.1455

He was a gunsmith.

In 1751, he was living in the Town of Lampeter, abutting Lancaster Township.1456

He died in 1754. His will564 names his wife Rebecca, sons Joshua and Isaac, and daughters Ann and Eleanor. Besides these children, he evidently had a son named John, who died a few years before that.