Ordway Family and Colby, Osgood, Gove, Morrill, Jameson, & Other New England Old Names

From The Granite Monthly: A New Hampshire Magazine Devoted to History, Biography, Literature, and State Progress, Volume 15

The name of Ordway is of some note in the annals of Warner. Any one who has glanced over the early records of the proprietors of the town will there see on almost every page the name of Dr. Nehemiah Ordway. He was a resident of Amesbury, a graduate of Harvard college, and a physician of wide reputation in his day. The Ordway family originated from James Ordway, who was born in Wales in 1620, and, marrying Ann Emery, emigrated to America about 1648, and settled at Newbury. Dr. Nehemiah Ordway was the great-grandson of this James and the son of Deacon John Ordway. Photo A J Sawyer

He was born in 1713, and died January 13, 1779, aged 66 years. Dr. Ordway was one of the original grantees of Warner, and was clerk of the proprietors a great many years. He was greatly interested in the settlement of the town and owned a valuable lot at the lower village, embracing the whole hillside by the Runels house, which was afterwards the property of Joseph Bartlett. He visited Warner in 1768 and again in 1773, the last time staying several months, but he never settled here. That work he left for another's hand to do. Photo Weat Newbury Ordway Reservation

Dr. Nehemiah Ordway was the father of at least two sons, Rev. Nehemiah and Bradshaw Ordway. Rev. Nehemiah, who was born in Amesbury in 1743, and graduated at Harvard in 1764, preached successively at Warner in 1767, '68, '69, '70 and '71, but not regularly. Among the proprietors' bills for 1769 was one for five pounds and twelve shillings ($18.65) to "Nehemiah Ordway, Jr., for preaching," and in 1771, "one pound and ten shillings to Nehemiah Ordway, Jr., for preaching." He was subsequently settled over the church at Middleton, N. H., and later at East Haverhill, Mass. He died at Pembroke, in 1836, aged 93

  

Bradshaw Ordway was younger than his brother, the exact date of his birth being not far from 1750. He came to Warner as early as 1782, and built a log cabin on his father's lot a short distance up the hillside across the highway from George Colby's residence. His wife was Eleanor Stevens, a cousin to the wife of General Aquila Davis. In 1784 Bradshaw Ordway exchanged his lot with Joseph Bartlett for two adjoining lots in the north village. The same year he sold one of the lots to Isaac Dalton, and, in 1785, Bradshaw Ordway and his family moved up to the hill. Nehemiah, the oldest of his children, was then a babe in his mother's arms.

There was a habitation already there. The Bartlett gore, as it was called, embraced some one hundred and forty acres. All were sixty-acre lots on the west of this gore. The two lots that constituted the gore were very irregular. On the north the width was eighty-seven rods; at the south end it tapered to only a few rods in width. In length it was more than a mile. The original Dalton farm, which was cut off at the south end, embraced sixty acres. The remaining portion constituted the farm that Bradshaw Ordway took possession of one hundred and eight years ago. Near the center of the estate stood a log cabin which had been built by Joseph Bartlett a year or two previously.

 

This became the home of the pioneers for a number of years, certainly until after 1793, for Samuel and Thomas, who were twins and were born that year, first saw the light in this structure. The next year, perhaps, or a year later, a frame building of larger dimensions was erected by the pioneer. This latter structure stood but two or three rods from the former habitation and about thirty rods northwest of the present buildings. To reach the site of these ancient dwellings one should follow the path out past the apple trees about twenty rods, then go straight north about ten more. On a little rise of ground in the center of the field is the site of the former house where Bradshaw Ordway spent the latter years of his life. Not a vestige of that early habitation remains to-day. A few rods beyond this, straight north, is another green knoll, where rests a large granite rock. Just west of this rock stood the log cabin erected by Joseph Bartlett, and the first home of Bradshaw Ordway on the place. A huge elm overshadowed it during the time it was a habitation. In my childhood's days a portion of this stump was visible and also broken pieces of brick, the remnants of the pioneer's chimney, but there is nothing there now to show that it was ever the site of a dwelling-place.

This part of the north village came very near being an Ordway settlement. Just across the path from the site of the original home, on a still higher knoll, is the foundation of the house which Thomas Ordway built for himself a little after the close of the second war with Great Britain. The frame of the house was about thirty by eighteen feet, one story in height, and was never painted. A well near by has water of remarkable purity, and the old sweep stood there when I was a boy.

Thomas Ordway married Polly Ferrin, a daughter of Benjamin Ferrin, who lived at the present Newton Gove place. Their two children, Alvah and Susan, were born in this old house. After living here a number of years Thomas Ordway sold his little patrimony of thirty-four acres to Benjamin F. Flanders. The price paid was one hundred and ten dollars, whose purchasing power, in 1826, was twice that of the same sum to-day. Mr. Ordway moved to Bristol, and died there about 1870. His two children have descendants still living at Evansville, Wis. Below is Ferrin Family line in NH

The next owner of the Thomas Ordway house was James Batchelder, who married a daughter of Jacob Morrill in the east part of the town. Batchelder was an Osgoodite, and remained here only four or five years. The house then become the home of another child of Bradshaw Ordway, Deborah, who had married a Dudley Webster of Bristol. This Webster was a tailor by trade, and justified the truth of the old adage that it takes nine tailors to make a man. He deserted his wife, and she and her three children came here to live. After these children were old enough to care for themselves, Mrs. Webster gave up her home and lived with her brother Nehemiah, and the land reverted to the original homestead. The old house was taken down in 1842. One half of the frame was sold to Captain Timothy Flanders, who set it up for a carriage-house at the Dalton place; the other portion was used by Levi Flanders, senior, for the same purpose at the Walter M. Flanders place.

Meanwhile David Ordway had gone out farther to the south and built him a home. It was a low, one-story building, thirty by eighteen feet, the long side facing the south, and was unpainted. The house was built in the summer of 1812. In 1817 he exchanged with his brother, Nehemiah, who had put up a dwelling-house in what is now known as the Stevens lot, a component part of the Ordway homestead.

This is the house that those of my generation remember as the " Uncle Miah Ordway house." Nehemiah Ordway made it his home the remainder of his life. To this house he brought, in 1818, his young bride, Mary, daughter of Isaiah Flanders. Here were born his three sons, John, Joseph, and ex-Governor Nehemiah G. Ordway. An addition of about sixteen feet was made to the east end, a little later, which gave the house a remarkable frontage for so low and narrow a structure. This addition was known as "Aunt Lucy's parlor." It was the living-room of Bradshaw Ordway's eldest daughter, Lucy, who spent her life in the home of her brother.

In this house Bradshaw Ordway died in 1820, aged some over seventy years. The latter years of his life were clouded by spells of partial insanity, and the cares of a large family fell upon his oldest son, Nehemiah, at an early age. The remains were interred in the cemetery back of Union block, where Mrs. Ordway was already buried. Nehemiah Ordway's wife, Mary, died in 1850, and was buried beside her kindred. Mr. Ordway subsequently married Hannah, one of the seven daughters of Levi Osgood and widow of Levi Colby, who lived on the Edmunds place in Joppa. He was drowned in Warner river, in July, 1862. His brother Samuel, who never married, continued to reside in the old house until 1867, when he went to live with "Brother" Charles Colby on Burnt hill, where he died in 1874. The next year after he left the house was taken down, and the frame was sold to Rufus A. Davis, who used a portion of it in making the ell of his dwelling-house. John Ordway's woodsheds stand over the old cellar. Mr. Ordway's present residence was erected in 1853. The barn was built by Nehemiah Ordway in 1820.

Just south of the maples in the little hollow there formerly stood the "village smithy." Samuel Ordway was blacksmith as well as farmer, and did considerable work at his forge up to 1860. This shop was a portion of the old frame house, the first built on the place. It was taken down several years ago.
MINISTER'S RECORD BOOK Adopted by Anne Reilly in honor of Rev. Michael O. Shirley
Ordway, Nehemiah. Record Book, 1777-1829.

Nehemiah Ordway (1743-1836) was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts and became a congregational minister after his graduation from Harvard College in 1764. This small volume is a record of Ordway's ministerial activities from 1777 to 1829. It adds considerably to what is known of Ordway's career and activities. He was peripatetic, settling in Middleton in 1777, but later also serving in Candia, East Haverhill, Raymond, Kingston and Pembroke. In a note in the front of the volume Ordway says, seemingly with pride, that he had preached in fifty towns. The record book includes genealogical notes, and records of his settlement at Middleton and records of as well as admissions, births and marriages in the other churches with which he was associated. ~ Thomas Knoles

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Mariah Ordway
Aaron Ordway Check out At the River Bend Blog

Was born at Hebron, N. H., May 4, 1814. Came to Lawrence Mar., 1847, establishing himself in business as an apothecary and in practice as a physician. This business and profession he followed for about twenty-four years. . Eight years since he retired from practice, but Is active as president and a principal owner and director in Brown's Lumber Co. of Whitefield, N. H. He is also president of the newly organized Whitefield & Jefferson R. R. Co. His father was a hardy pioneer settler of Hebron, N. H., living to the ripe age of 93. His uncle, John Ordway, was clerk and historian of the Lewis and Clark U. S. Exploring Expedition. In early life Dr. Ordway had only the advantages of a common school education, and for several years before coming to Lawrence was engaged in mercantile business, and for three years in the practice of medicine. Alderman in 1857 and 1858.  From History of Lawrence

History of Essex County, Massachusetts: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Volume 1

Among men who, during a long residence in Lawrence, have exhibited strongly marked individuality and intense activity in business and in general affairs, Dr. Aaron Ordway is a prominent veteran. A powerful ally in any cause he espoused, he has been, also, a wily and determined enemy to schemes and plans that he found well-grounded reason to oppose.

He came to the city in 1847, having previously been a trader in general merchandise at Springfield, Mass., and a practicing physician in Rumney, N. II. For twenty years, after coming, he was one of the busiest physicians of the city, and, for a long time, added to professional duties a thriving retail drug business. Faithful care of these interests called for uninterrupted action, and the doctor's temperament and physique fitted him to throw a vast amount of energy into the conduct of his private business, and yet continue active in matters of public concern, as a private citizen and as an alderman during two terms of service. So active was his life that his fellow-citizens wondered when he slept and rested, for he was the last man seen on the street or at business at night and the first abroad in the morning. Later in life he became financially interested in timber-lands and in the manufacture of lumber, and was at one time president of Brown's Lumber Company, of Whitefield, in Northern New Hampshire, and also of the Whitefield and Jefferson Railroad, in the same locality.

In religious matters Dr. Ordway has never been committed to any form of doctrine or wording of creeds, because of others' declaration, having well-grounded faith and opinion of his own, but he has liberally assisted many a struggling church and society in time of financial strait. He has also been a persistent and unswerving friend of the City Hospital.

In politics Dr. Ordway has been a party man of the intensest kind when he believed his party right, holding that right cannot be too boldly asserted or vigorously advocated; nevertheless, he could see a party desert its principles without joining in the stampede. He was a pioneer among early Abolitionists and an active sympathizer with the boldest reformers, whether in the anti-slavery or woman's suffrage cause. Long-continued intensity of action has undermined and broken a strong constitution and hardy physique, and, at the the age of seventy-four, he is an invalid, yet his courage is unabated and his mind unclouded.

In his active days his favor was much courted and his opposition feared by aspirants for political honors. Never on the fence or slow to declare himself, he was, in politics, as in all else, a determined opponent and a fast friend. It was said by some, that, when he appeared in a political contest as a cavalryman with a sorrel charger there was terror in the host he opposed.

He was born in Hebron, N. H., May 4, 1814. His father, Stephen Ordway, went from Amesbury, Mass., in childhood, to Dunbarton, N. H. From thence, at nineteen years, he removed to the northern plantation of "Cockamouth" (afterwards called Hebron), there founding a home, where he lived to the age of ninety-three years. John Ordway, brother of Stephen and uncle of the subject of this sketch, was the clerk and historian of the Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition, an enterprise that opened up hitherto unknown regions of the West in the early years of the century and made the participants therein famous in American History.
Dr. Ordway married, for his first wife, Mary M. Kelley, of New Hampton, N. H., and four children survive her; for his second wife, he married Mary Ann Kelley, of Franklin, N. H., and with her he is enjoying as much of rest and quiet as broken health allows.
Alfred T. Ordway (1821–1897) landscape and portrait painter, and one of the founding fathers of the Boston Art Club Grandson of Nehemiah Ordway

                                                        Some of A A Ordway's work

THE BIRTHPLACE, FROM THE ROAD
Showing eastern porch, gate, bridle-post, and large boulder used as horse-block

BIRTHPLACE IN WINTER
From hemlocks above brook
Copyright, 1891, by A. A. Ordway.

See more info on A A Ordway White Mountain Art & Artists

John Pond Ordway (1824-1880) below An other American musician in the nineteenth century is John Pond Ordway. He is most well know for composing the song Twinkling Stars Are Laughing, Love. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts on August 1,1824 and died in April 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts son of Aaron Ordway and Catherine Pond. Not only was he a composer, but he was also a doctor, a music entrepreneur, and a politician. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1859 and he was ont of the first ever surgeons to volunteer at the beginning of the Civil War.

   

Ordway severed in the sixth Regiment, which was called the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. John Pond Ordway was one of the few union surgeons sent to help heal the wounded after the Battle of Gettysburg. He also owned his own music shop in Boston. His most well known song Twinkling Stars Are Laughing, Love was recorded by the Hayden Quartet between 1902 and 1904. Around 1845 he organized Ordway’s Aeolians, a blackface minstrel troup which performed at Ordway Hall in Boston moreover nationally to promote Ordway's publishing business. Future bandleader and composer, Patrick Gimore, worked in Ordway's store and appeared with the Aeolians. James Lord Pierpont’s first major composition "The Returned Californian" in 1852 was written expressly for Ordway and his troupe. A number of nineteenth century songs were written for the Aeolians and/or dedicated to Ordway, including Jingle Bells.

Nehemiah George Ordway (November 10, 1828 – July 3, 1907)

Lucius Pond Ordway Sr., c. 1900. One of St Paul's distinguished citizens, Mr. Ordway made his first fortune in plumbing and heating supplies, first as Rogers and Ordway, then Crane & Ordway. In the early 1900s when a small local company called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing needed financial backing, Ordway is said to have paid $14,000 for what would become known as 3M, one of the nation's formidable industrial juggernauts. 3M's invention of masking tape and Scotch tape proved a significant financial windfall.

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Ellen and Lou Ordway
John "Smokey" Ordway Jr  
Grave Photo Amy Levesque