TSGS Cruiser Blog

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Indiana Stone Carver Lewis Baker

This is a really cool grave marker and so is the "Ballad of Lewis Baker."

This coming Friday I will be taking the 7th grade students of the Lawrence County, Indiana Shawswick School through the Green Hill Cemetery. It is an annual field trip event. Their favorite grave marker is always that of stone carver Lewis Baker.This link is to the "Ballad" written in his honor: Take a minute to listen to it http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=395734&songID=3139373


This coming Friday I will be taking the 7th grade students of the Lawrence County, Indiana Shawswick School through the Green Hil; Cemetery. It is an annual field trip event. Their favorite grave marker is always that of stone carver Lewis Baker.This link is to the "Ballad" written in his honor: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=395734&songID=3139373

Ballad of Lewis Baker 


Lyrics: Tim Brown. Music: Graham Snow 
Vocal, guitars and programming: Graham Snow 



In the early nineteen hundreds down Lawrence County way 
Working in the quarries was how you earned your pay 
Lewis Baker was a carver and a good one so it’s told 
The stress of carving took him when he was twenty one years old 



Bedford, Indiana was the place that he called home 
And Lewis earned his living making carvings out of stone 
It was limestone work that killed him, and limestone gave him fame 
For the monument in Bedford, that bears young Baker’s name 



The other carvers liked him, and mourned that he was gone 
They took the block of limestone that he’d been working on 
They carved a fitting tribute, so we’d remember him 
A copy of his workbench, just the way that it had been 



His blueprints and carving tools the way he’d left them there 
Even little mounds of dust, reproduced with loving care 
From far and wide, people come, to see this work of art 
And remember Lewis Baker, a man of noble heart 



Bedford, Indiana was the place that he called home 
And Lewis earned his living making carvings out of stone 
It was limestone work that killed him, and limestone gave him fame 
For the monumental tombstone, that bears young Baker’s name 



At night in Greenhill Cemetary, when a chill is in the air 
You might see a ghostly figure, standing near his workbench there 
Lewis Baker was a carver and a good one so it’s told 
The stress of carving took him when he was twenty one years old 



Bedford, Indiana was the place that he called home 
And Lewis earned his living making carvings out of stone 
It was limestone work that killed him, and limestone gave him fame 
For the monumental tombstone, that bears young Baker’s name 
For the monument in Bedford, that bears young Baker’s name