Accidental History Detective

I never set out to uncover a mystery. I just saw a name—Ezra Baker Jr.—on a genealogy site and read the familiar refrain: Once a respected doctor and businessman, he died poor, alone, drunk and forgotten in a Philadelphia almshouse. It struck me as odd that he would end up in my adopted hometown, because I don’t have family ties to the Philadelphia area. Why would he end up here?

Curiosity got the better of me. I found where he was buried (Woodlands Cemetery in West Philadelphia) and went to see for myself. His headstone, though weathered, was marble. And that didn’t sit right with me. In 1870, poor men who died in almshouses weren’t buried under marble. That simple fact cracked open the whole story.

What followed is a continuing deep dive into forgotten records, political appointments, scandalous accusations, and unexpected connections. His final years—those that history seemed to misplace—weren’t quite what the old genealogy reports claimed.

I tracked him to a politically-appointed post in Washington Territory, in proximity to two of his sons. I tracked him to Washington DC, where he was trying to get a meeting with Lincoln after being pushed out of that job. 

It turns out that Ezra did know Abraham Lincoln. He did business with military generals. He had been part of a major Civil War-era smuggling trial. He had spent years crisscrossing the country. I kept chasing leads. I found him later in a Philadelphia directory at Broad and Passyunk, maybe still practicing medicine. His cause of death was listed as “softening of the brain,” an old term for what might have been a stroke or dementia.

The usual story about Ezra Baker Jr. turned out to be more rumor than reality. And that got me thinking—how often do we accept someone else’s version of the truth? How many times do we repeat a mistake until it becomes history?

Theme: Stay Curious.

Sometimes, a single detail—a marble headstone where there shouldn’t be one—can change everything. What might you discover if you followed a thread of curiosity in your own life?

Your story matters, and sometimes rewriting history—whether it’s your own or someone else’s—starts with asking the right questions. If you’re ready to explore your own narrative, coaching can help you uncover what’s been overlooked.

Family portrait