Hester Eleanor Runnels

Hester Eleanor Runnels

• Father: Hosea H. Runnels b. circa 1803, d. 1837
• Mother: Lucy Jackson d. circa 1828

• Hester Eleanor Runnels was born on 22 May 1825 in Monticello, Lawrence County, Mississippi.
• In 1842, in Hinds County, Mississippi, Hiram G. Runnels, guardian for three of the minor heirs of Hosea Runnels, asks permission to sell a slave family held by the estate of the said Hosea. The petitioner represents "that it will be impossible to make a fair and equal distribution of said slaves among the four distributees . . . without selling the same and dividing the proceeds among them."
• She married William Robinson Baker, son of Asa Baker and Hannah Robinson, on 15 December 1845.
• Hester Eleanor Runnels died on 14 February 1880 at age 54 in Houston, Harris County, Texas.
• Her husband William Robinson Baker became a widower at her death.
• She was interred at Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, Harris County, Texas.
• The following appeared on 1 May 1890 in The Galveston Daily News: (Houston, April 30) This evening at 7.30 o'clock Houston sustained a loss that can not be repaired in the death of Hon. Wm. Robinson Baker, one of her oldest and most highly esteemed citizens. . . .
       ". . . He married in December, 1845, Miss Hester E. Runnells, a daughter of Hosea A. Runnels, a prominent merchant of Mississippi and brother of Governor Hiram G. Runnels of that state, in whose family Mrs. Baker was raised after the governor had settled as a planter in Brazoria county, Tex."
       . . . The funeral will take place to-morrow afternoon at 4.30 o'clock.
• History of Texas (published 1895): On the 15th day of December, 1845, Mr. Baker married Miss Hester Eleanor Runnels, a daughter of Hosea R. Runnels, of Mississippi, and a niece of ex-Governor Hiram G. Runnels, of that State, in whose family Mrs. Baker was reared after her father's death. The issue of this union was one child, a daughter, Lucy, born July 13, 1848. She became an accomplished lady, and on the 15th of June, 1869, was married to Captain E. P. Turner of Houston. She died June 2, 1873, leaving an infant son, William Baker Turner. On the 14th of February 1880, Mrs. Baker died.

• Last Edited: 25 Dec 2012