Louise (Baker) Atkinson (1842 - 1884)

Born 14 Nov 1842 in New York City, New York, New York, USA

Ancestors

Died 10 Jun 1884 at age 41 in New York City, New York, New York, USA

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Biography

Louise Baker was born 14 November 1842 to John S. Baker and Abigail Colgate, in New York City.^[1]

Louise was married to Civil War veteran Colonel Hoffman Atkinson, son of John P. Atkinson and Mary B. Rathbone, on 20 December 1864. He was in the tea trade with Louise's brother Colgate Baker and was described as a long term resident in Yokohama.^[2] Using the pseudonym "Bishop of Homoco", Hoffman wrote a pamphlet called Exercises in the Yokohama Dialect, a humorous introduction of a language which developed among the multicultural business town that Yokohama had become in his day.^[3] Referring to it as "Japanned-English English-Japanned", Kiyoshi "Karl" Kawakami described it in the New York Times in 1909 as "the funniest specimens of pidgin Japanese, in which the foreigners express their wants to jinrikisha men and tea house girls... however, in the other pidgin language--English as it is Japanned--that we find so many comical and side-splitting expressions."

Louise and their daughters may at times have been resident in Japan, but both of their daughters were born in New York. None of them were in any census records in 1860-1880, and so the chances they were abroad are decent.

Hoffman (and perhaps Louise and children) returned from Japan, and Hoffman was appointed secretary of the U.S. Legation at St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1876,^{[4] [5]} where it seems the family spent the second half of the 1870s, as they returned to New York in January 1879 on a steamship out of Cologne.^[6] after Hoffman resigned his post.^[7]

An 1883 advertisement for pianos features a quote from Hoffman Atkinson indicating they had a home in San Francisco that year.^[8] (Colgate Baker and family were living there at this time, as well.)

Louise died 10 June 1884 in New York.^[9]

Children:

• Mary Rathbone Atkinson
• Louise Atkinson

Hoffman married, second, Sophia Durand Hepburn in 1887.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ Truman Abbe, Robert Colgate and Hubert Abbe Howson, the Immigrant: a Genealogy of the New York Colgates And Some Associated Lines, (New Haven, Conn.: The Tuttle, Moorehouse & Taylor company, 1941), p. 149-150 (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066029893;view=1up;seq=223).
2. ↑ https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/16921/1/D.Swanson_thesis.pdf
3. ↑ https://archive.org/stream/revisedenlargede00atki#page/n1/mode/2up
4. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19123624/hoffman_atkinson_confirmed_as_secretary/
5. ↑ New-York Tribune, New York, New York, 29 Nov 1901, p. 9 (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19111248/hoffman_atkinson_obituary_1901/).
6. ↑ "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVSK-6NZF : 11 March 2018), Hoffman Atkinson Esq, 1879; citing NARA microfilm publication M237 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm
7. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19135916/hoffman_atkinson_resigns_as_secretary/
8. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19136931/hoffman_atkinson_receives_piano_in_san/
9. ↑ "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2WJG-46G : 10 February 2018), Louise Baker Atkinson, 10 Jun 1884; citing Death, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,373,947.
10. ↑ "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2445-TZ3 : 10 February 2018), Hoffman Atkinson and Sophie Durand Hepburn, 06 Dec 1887; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,556,695.