Born in 1820 in Fort Ann, New York, Floyd Perry Baker led a peripatetic life. He worked as a teacher, blacksmith, and agent for packet boats and stage lines, traveling from New York to Kansas and other states. He married twice. In 1852, Floyd and his family headed for Hawaii. They traveled down the Mississippi by boat to New Orleans, then to Panama, San Francisco, and Hawaii, where they arrived in June 1853. Floyd was appointed crown attorney and clerk of the district court of the Hawaiian Islands.
In 1855, the Bakers returned to the U.S. and settled in Andrew County, Missouri, where Floyd remained until 1860, engaged in farming and land speculation. By 1863, the family had moved to Topeka, Kansas. He had purchased an interest in the Kansas State Record and was affiliated with the paper until 1871, when he retired.
In 1871, Floyd went to Denison, Texas, where (with Dr. George A. Cutler) he established the new town's first newspaper, the Denison Journal. In 1873-75, he held the office of postmaster.
Back home in Kansas around 1875, Floyd assumed control of the Topeka Commonwealth. As its editor-in-chief and publisher, he used its pages to influence Republican Party politics and promote its causes and to become an active force in the Kansas Editors and Publishers Association; through the latter organization, he helped organize the Kansas State Historical Society (1875). A busy and engaged man, Baker’s was a life in full motion.
In 1878, Floyd was Assistant Commissioner to the World's Fair in Paris, France, where he made a report on the subject of forestry. While in Europe, he visited Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Next he was appointed as a commissioner of the Foresters' Bureau of the federal Agricultural Department. Assigned duty in the Mississippi Valley, he went west to the Rocky Mountains. There he advocated for establishment of a government agency to manage forest resources, —a dream that was realized twenty years later. He died May 27, 1909, in Topeka.