Jacob BAUGHMAN was born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, October 21, 1829, and is one of the eight children of Jacob and Sarah (Ritter) Baughman, both natives of Pennsylvania. They came to West Creek Township from Valparaiso in 1851, where both are buried. Jacob Baughman, the subject of this sketch, was reared in Ohio, where he received a common school education, and moved with his parents to Valparaiso, Ind., in 1849, and to West Creek Township in 1851, where they built a house and began breaking the prairie; here he remained until 1852, when he took the "gold fever," and, with his brother and two others, went to California via New York and Panama. From San Francisco he went to Dry Creek, and thence to Sierra County, and mined on Yuba River with good success; he then mined on Lost Hill and Bush Creek for seven years, and in 1859 returned much better off than he left, and farmed in Kankakee County, Ill, until 1862, when he again went to Idaho by the overland route; they took the "Bridger route," then but an Indian trail, traveled for sixty days, and after much suffering, arrived in Virginia City, and began mining in Alder Gulch diggings.
 

After two months, he went to his old haunts in Nevada County, Cal. In 1864, he went to Salt Lake, and thence to Idaho, where he prospected and found good diggings at Black Gulch; later he mined at Helena City and Silver Creek, and returned home via Fort Benton and Missouri River. Mr. Baughman has a mining experience, perhaps not equaled by any man in Lake County; he had toiled, suffered, and been rewarded. Until 1870, he farmed in West Creek Township, when he moved to Lowell, where he now resides. Besides town property, he owns forty acres in Cedar Creek Township, 200 in West Creek Township, and 160 in Kankakee County, Ill. On May 28, 1868, he married Miss Emma Dodge, daughter of Henry L. and Mary L. (Plummer) Dodge, born November 18, 1846, in Merrimack County, N.H. To this union there has issued one son, Henry Lancaster, born March 21, 1869. Mr. Baughman is one of the self-made and substantial men of Lake County, and a Republican in politics.
 

Source: Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana; Historical and Biographical. Batney, Chicago, 1882.

Biographical Sketches, Cedar Creek Township, p. 638 Sumbitted by: Philip Ritter - philr@leland.Stanford.edu