Walter Baker & Company

The Baker Chocolate Company is the oldest producer of chocolate in the United States. The company was established when a physician named Dr. James Baker met John Hannon on the banks of the Neponset River. Irishman John Hannon was penniless but was a skilled chocolatier, a craft which he had learned in England and which was, until now, exclusive to Europe. With the help of Baker, Hannon was able to set up a business where he produced “Hannon’s Best Chocolate” for 15 years. In 1779, Hannon went on a trip to the West Indies and never returned. His wife sold the company in 1780 to Dr. Baker who changed the name to Baker Chocolate Company. The Baker's Chocolate brand now belongs to Mondelez International.

Dr. James Baker’s son, Edmund (1770–1846), and his son, Colonel Walter (1792–1852), successfully carried on the business. The chocolate was marketed with a guaranteed money-back policy if the customers were not one hundred percent satisfied with their purchase. Colonel Walter Baker had studied law at Harvard College and thus had the name “Baker’s” legally protected for future generations of this family business.

After Colonel Walter Baker died, his brother-in-law Sidney Williams took over, but died two years later. Henry Lillie Pierce, a stepnephew of Walter Baker, leased the business for the next thirty years. Henry Lillie Pierce expanded the business substantially. He added more buildings for the production and found new market places for the chocolate products. He exhibited his products at Exhibitions in both the old and new worlds, and won an award at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. Pierce was an influential citizen of Dorchester and politically very active: he was elected mayor of the city of Boston twice, served as US congressman and in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

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