TOLLAND, CT — This month, 250 years ago, a Tolland soldier fighting for United States independence began a brave but sad journey that is commemorated at a special resting place in north central Connecticut.
It is located on a small tract of land near the Main Street side of the Pratt & Whitney Plant in East Hartford.
It serves as a memorial to someone who served long before jet engines were a staple of America's military, a time when, well, America was trying to become America. Back then, air was something one breathed in and a plane was a flat surface.
The plot is the final resting place of Heman Baker, a sergeant in the Lexington Alarm Co. who fought in the Revolutionary War. Baker was captured by the British early in the war, came down with smallpox, and was released.
He tried to make it back to his home in Tolland but, after a month-long journey, never made it.
He was buried in a lone plot near what is now the the Pratt plant.
Former Tolland Town Council member Rick Field, along with Ron Usher and Esther Jagodzinski, who worked at Pratt for many years, took an interest in his story and spearheaded the efforts to restore the grave in 2004.
It is still there as a monument to Baker and the birth of a nation.
According to "The Early History of Tolland," an address delivered before the Tolland Historical Society in 1861 by then-society president Loren Waldo, a company of men was formed for the Continental Army immediately after hostilities broke out in Lexington, MA in 1775.
The company roll lists Baker as the orderly sergeant.
According to a family history, Baker was captured near New York in September of 1776, but was released that winter after developing smallpox. He tried to make it home to Tolland, but fell more seriously ill and made it as far as East Hartford. He died in January, 1777, according to the marker near the plot.
In 2013, Field said he led the efforts to preserve the gravesite to honor an "original American war hero."
That is, while the aircraft engines are being built to equip America's new military.
Heman Baker would probably appreciate the symbolism.
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