Orlando Harrison Baker

Orlando Harrison Baker was born in Union County, Indiana,[1] the oldest child of Jacob Baker and Mary Baker.[2] He was educated at Mt. Morris Seminary in Illinois and at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.[2][3] For lack of money he had to drop out of college and go to work as a carpenter, painter, and teacher.[2][3] He eventually saved up enough to complete his undergraduate degree at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) in 1857.[2][3] He was ordained a minister around 1858, and he received his M.A. from Indiana Asbury University in 1861.[1]

In 1868, he took up the post of professor of Latin and Greek at Simpson College.[2] In 1871, he moved to Algona College to serve as its president, a position he held until the college closed in 1875.[1] From 1875 to 1877, he served as pastor of churches in Cambridge and Boonsboro,[3] and in 1878 he became the principal of the Boonsboro school system.[2]

In 1879, he moved his family back to Indianola,[2][3] and the following year he took up the editorship of the Indianola Herald, a position he held until 1886.[1][3] Following that, he became a traveling correspondent for the Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper until 1892.[1]

Baker next moved into government service as a U.S. consul, first in Copenhagen, Denmark (1893-94) and then Sydney, Australia (1900-08).[1][4] In 1908, he took up the consulship of Sandakan, North Borneo, where he remained to the end of his life.[1][3] In 1913, as he was on his way back to the United States on leave, he died on board the U.S. transport Thomas in the harbor at Nagasaki, Japan.[2][3]

Baker married Mary Catherine Ridley in 1858; she died in 1890 and he remarried, to Rachel Halton Beach.[1] He had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood.[2] His daughters Myra and Joanna also became professors, Myra at Napa College and Joanna at Simpson College.[2]

• Orlando Harrison Baker at Find a Grave