BIOGRAPHY: Baker, Charles G. From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ************************************************* Captain CHARLES G. BAKER, brother of the above, and President of the Decorah Woolen Mill company, was seven years in the British Navy, and received the commission of captain in the military service. In the Peninsular and Oriental campaigns, where he served as second officer, he distinguished himself in volunteering to take a jolly-boat of the steamship, which was fast on the rocks off the coast of China, and to obtain assistance from hong Kong, by which the crew and passengers were saved, and was made the recipient of a valuable gold chronometer by the company and other valuable testimonials by the passengers, besides promotion to the position of chief officer. In 1850 Captain Baker entered the service of the Honorable East India Company, taking charge of a squadron of cavalry attached to a regiment of Sikhs, who, proving loyal during the mutiny of 1857, rendered most valuable service; and it was brilliant and gallant services in the defeat of a greatly superior force of the enemy that Captain Baker was decorated by Her Majesty with the Victoria Cross, --- the prize most coveted by any British soldier. Having lost his health during the mutiny, Captain Baker came to this country on furlough after having been promoted to the command of his regiment and subsequently to the position of Deputy Inspector General of Police in the Bengal Presidency, and finally retiring from the service to make his home in Iowa.