Joshua Baker

Joshua Gabriel Baker (March 23, 1799 – April 16, 1885) was the 22nd Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction.

Early life

Joshua was born March 23, 1799 in Mason County, Kentucky. His father was Joshua Baker and his mother was Susan Lewis. In 1803, the Baker family moved to the Mississippi Territory and by 1811 they had settled at Oaklawn Plantation in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana in the Territory of Orleans

Education and military service

Baker attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York from 1817-1819. Whereupon, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Artillery Corps and served as an assistant professor at West Point before resigning in October 1820. In 1821 he moved to Litchfield, Connecticut to study law, joining the bar in Mason County, Kentucky in 1822. Baker returned to Louisiana to practice law at the Opelousas, Louisiana office of John Brownson during 1822-1829 and 1832-1838.

In 1825, Baker married Fanny Assheton Stelle in Opelousas. They had three children before she died on August 17, 1831. From 1826-1829 Baker was a Colonel in the Louisiana State Militia. He also worked on Engineering projects in Plaquemines Parish until 1829, when he was appointed Judge in St. Mary Parish; a position he held until 1839.

Joshua

Joshua /ˈdʒɒʃuə/ or Jehoshua (Hebrew: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ Yĕhôshúʿa or Hebrew: יֵשׁוּעַ Yĕshúʿa; Aramaic: ܝܫܘܥ‎ Isho; Greek: Ἰησοῦς, Arabic: يوشع بن نون‎ Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn; Latin: Iosue, Turkish: Yuşa), is a figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel (Num 13–14) and identified in several passages as Moses' assistant. He is the central figure in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua. According to the books of Exodus, Numbers and Joshua, he became the leader of the Israelite tribes after the death of Moses. His name was Hoshe'a (הוֹשֵׁעַ) the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, but Moses called him Yehoshu'a (יְהוֹשֻעַ; Joshua in English) (Numbers 13:16) the name by which he is commonly known. The name is shortened to Yeshua in Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8:17). According to the Bible he was born in Egypt prior to the Exodus.

He was one of the twelve spies of Israel sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan. (Numbers 13:1-16) After the death of Moses, he led the Israelite tribes in the conquest of Canaan, and allocated the land to the tribes. According to Biblical chronology, Joshua lived between 1355-1245 BCE, or sometime in the late Bronze Age. According to Joshua 24:29, Joshua died at the age of 110.

Joseph F. Girzone

Joseph Francis Girzone (May 15, 1930 – November 29, 2015), sometimes known as the "Joshua Priest", was an American Catholic priest and writer, most notably as the author of the Joshua series of novels.

Life

Early life

Girzone was born in Albany, New York, to Peter, a butcher, and Margaret Girzone, the oldest of their twelve children. It was a struggling family, which experienced the shame of eviction during his childhood.<ref name=TU2 /

Girzone entered the Carmelite Order as a young man and was ordained as a priest in 1955. A few years later he chose to leave the order in favor of life as a secular priest and was accepted by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. He then served at various parishes of the diocese, in the course of which he became active in advocating for the elderly. He was a driving force in the formation of the Office for the Aging of Montgomery County.<ref name=TU /

In 1981, however, Girzone was diagnosed with a heart condition which was judged to be fatal, leading him to retire from active ministry.<ref name=girzone-site / He accepted the forfeiture of any pension or medical benefits from the diocese as part of an agreement for his early retirement.<ref name=NCR /

Joshua (name)

Joshua is a Biblical given name derived from the Hebrew Yehoshua (יהושע). The name was a common alternative form of the name יֵשׁוּעַ – yēšūă which corresponds to the Greek spelling Iesous, from which, through the Latin Iesus, comes the English spelling Jesus.

As a result of the origin of the name, a majority of people before the 17th century who have this name are Jewish. A variant, truncated form of the name, Josh, gained popularity in the United States in the 1970s.

Popularity

Joshua

Information from the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics from 2003 to 2007 shows "Joshua" among the top-five given names for newborn males. In Scotland, the popularity of "Joshua" has been substantially lower than in the rest of the United Kingdom, appearing at rank 35 in 2000 and rising to rank 22 in 2006.

Instances of use

Following is a short annotated list of persons, real and fictional, sharing "Joshua" or "Josh" or very rarely "Yehoshua" as a given name, representative of the breadth in geography and time of the names' use.