NATCHEZ — The king is coming home.

Ashton Mackenzie Baker, the 2016 Pilgrimage Garden Club King who will reign over this year’s Hstoric Natchez Tableaux, is a sixth generation descendant of the builders of the Natchez antebellum house Lansdowne, George Marshall and Charlotte Hunt Marshall.

For Baker, who participated in the tableaux as a young child, coming back to Natchez to become king is celebrating his connection to his Natchez family roots.

Although he grew up in Baton Rouge, Baker visited his family home of Lansdowne for every holiday and Spring Pilgrimage seasons. As a little boy, he participated in Little Maypole.

These day’s Baker strives to be a modern renaissance man.

A 22-year-old senior Chinese language major at Trinity University in San Antonio, Baker was first asked by his parents to consider being tableaux king while studying in Beijing.

An aspiring science fiction novelist, Baker speaks Mandarin Chinese, studies fencing and hopes to move to New York to pursue his writing career after graduating this spring.

Baker is a graduate of The Runnels School where he played the flute in junior high and high school and participated in varsity cross country running.

Spring Pilgrimage royalty runs in Baker’s immediate family. His sister Anna reigned as queen in 2000, and his brother Andrew reigned as king in 2007. Because his brother and sister are previous Pilgrimage monarchs, he did not expect to be chosen for the honor.

“I was definitely surprised,” Baker said. “But it’s something I wanted to do, for sure.”

Baker’s uniform is an exact reproduction copied from the uniform worn by Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and has a double breasted frock coat in Confederate Gray wool with off white collar and cuff, gold piping, general collar insignia and Waterbury CS officer buttons. The trousers are also in Confederate Gray wool with metallic gold welt. Baker’s uniform was made by C&D Jarnigan Company, maker of Civil War reproduction clothing, located in Corinth.

Though Baker has taken up fencing as a hobby, he said he would rather not put his uniform sword, which has been part of his family’s estate since it was used in the Spanish-American War, through any combat.

As Baker celebrates his ancestry and the culture of his origins, he hopes it will stick with him as he pursues his big-city dreams.

“I have grown up in a culture which more or less espouses the Renaissance man,” Baker said. “And I have really come to appreciate that.”