John Orr

1744-1831 · Renfrewshire, Scotland

Born 1744, Renfrewshire, Scotland

Died 1831

John Orr was born in Renfrewshire, in the west of Scotland, in 1744. The History of Ryegate, published in 1913, gives his birthplace as Kilmalcolm. A memorial for him gives his birth as 26 December 1744 and his baptism as 30 December at Inverkip, a parish on the Firth of Clyde, and names his parents as John Orr and Janet Ramsey.

Farmers and tradesmen from around Glasgow and Paisley formed the Scotch-American Company of Farmers to buy land in America. They settled on Ryegate, in the Connecticut River valley of what is now Vermont. James Whitelaw, one of the company's managers, kept a journal of the first years. On Monday, 23 May 1774, the first settlers arrived from Scotland. John Orr and his brother Robert were among them. On 1 July the brothers took Lots 6 and 7 for themselves, and Lots 8 and 9 for William Blackwood. Robert later settled in Corinth.

John took Lot No. 6 and the house lot No. 356 in the town plot. His farm at the Corner was later owned by John Cameron, and the meeting house, where the town house now stands, was built on land sold from it. In 1776 the town chose him an overseer of the highways. He was a lister in 1782 and a selectman in 1783 and 1785.

In October 1777 he went to war. On the 6th, Capt. Frye Bayley's company of forty-one men left Newbury for Saratoga, where the British army of General John Burgoyne was trapped. John and James Orr of Ryegate marched as privates. Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on 17 October 1777, the turning point of the Revolution in the north.

In 1781 John married Sarah Mills of Chester, New Hampshire, the sister of John Mills of Newbury. Their children were William, born 10 November 1782; Mary, born 1790, who died at two and was buried in the pasture; John, born 25 September 1794; James, born 1796, who died at two; and Sarah, born 27 October 1799, who married John Jones.

In 1797 John traded his land at the Corner to John Cameron for two hundred acres in the west part of the town, on the Groton line, and cleared a new farm. A stone house there, near the Groton line, was said in 1913 to have been built by him before 1800, and the farm had stayed in his family ever since. He and Sarah were members of the Associate Presbyterian church. Sarah died in 1815. John died in December 1831 and is buried in the West cemetery of Ryegate, now the Hall-West Cemetery, under a government marker that reads "John Orr, Olcott's Vt. Mil., Rev. War".

Sources

Find a Grave, memorial 89883147, Hall-West Cemetery, Ryegate, Caledonia County, Vermont; photograph added by CarolynA, 2012.

Edward Miller and Frederic P. Wells, History of Ryegate, Vermont (1913), "Ryegate in the Revolutionary War," pp. 85-86.

Edward Miller and Frederic P. Wells, History of Ryegate, Vermont (1913), quoting the journal of James Whitelaw, pp. 24-27.

Edward Miller and Frederic P. Wells, History of Ryegate, Vermont (1913), Orr genealogy, pp. 485-486.

Edward Miller and Frederic P. Wells, History of Ryegate, Vermont (1913), pp. 24-26, 85-86, 485 and town officer lists (HathiTrust hvd.32044025031204); Frederic Palmer Wells, History of Barnet, Vermont (1923), p. 573 (HathiTrust wu.89067958520); Find a Grave memorial 89883147, with marker photograph. Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950, Inverkip, John Orr, 30 December 1744 (FamilySearch).

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Cite: Heirology, "John Orr (1744-1831)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-orr-1744-1831-1a7fb0.