John Orr
John Orr, farmer and stock raiser, is a son of John Orr, who was a native of Virginia, and came to Ohio in 1818, settling on the waters of main Paint Creek, in Marion Township. After remaining there two years, he removed to a farm on the north side of Sugar Creek, where he remained until his death, which occurred in 1856. His wife was a Miss Vance, of Kentucky, who preceded him to the grave. They were the parents of seven children, four sons and three daughters: Sophia, married, and died in Kentucky; Samuel, married, moved to Indiana, and died; Eleanor A., married, and died in this county; William P., married, moved to Johnson County, Iowa, and has his second wife; Elizabeth, married, moved to Indiana, and died; Andrew J., died unmarried; John, subject of this sketch.
John Orr, our subject, was born in Kentucky, in 1811. Came with his parents to Fayette County, in 1818. Married Eliza Snyder, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Snyder, in November, 1831. In the spring of 1832 they commenced keeping house on the farm on which they have resided all their married life, and which he still owns, located on the waters of Sugar Creek, on the Washington and Hillsboro pike, some four and a half miles from Washington C. H. Here Mrs. Orr died, after ten days' sickness, November 2, 1880, aged seventy years. She was a most estimable Christian lady.
They were the parents of eight children, five sons and three daughters: Henry S., married, moved to Kansas, and died quite recently, in the forty-ninth year of his age; Andrew V., married, and lives near Washington C. H.; Nancy A., married to Christian Grove, and lives near Washington C. H.; William H., married, and lives on the original homestead, now owned by his father; Elizabeth J., married, and lives in Iowa; Samuel O., unmarried, and died in the army; John S., married, and lives in his father's old homestead house; Emma A., married, and lives in Concord Township.
Mr. Orr sold goods, from 1841 to 1857, in a room just across the road from his house, which proved a financial success. He owns a most excellent farm of one hundred and sixty acres. In consequence of the death of his wife, he made a public sale of stock, farming implements, etc., in April, 1881, and ceased housekeeping, after a married life of nearly fifty years on the same spot of ground where he commenced. They have been members of the Methodist Episcopal Church for many years, and have seen all their children grown up to manhood and womanhood, a respectable, honored, well-to-do family.
From R. S. Dills' History of Fayette County