Smith Orr
Judge Smith Orr was born in Tallord, near Strahan, in County Tyrone, Ireland, on the 23d of November, 1797, and was the youngest child of Samuel and Sarah Orr. He had five brothers and two sisters, all of whom are dead. His mother died on the day of his birth, and his father landed, with the other members of his family at New Castle, Delaware, in the month of August, 1801. After a residence of a few years in the East, they removed to Applecreek, East Union township, Wayne county, in the spring of 1812.
There Mr. Orr continued to live until the death of his father, in 1818. He then had but the choice of meeting the world for himself without means, assistance or friends. From that time until about the age of twenty-five he labored at grubbing and railsplitting for others, when, having accumulated a small sum, he married Maria, youngest daughter of David Foreman, a soldier of the Revolution, who settled in Wayne county at a very early period, and who died there.
After their marriage they purchased and settled on a half-quarter of land in the woods on Apple creek, where they lived about three years, and then bought and removed to within one-half mile south of Orrville, and there resided over four years, and then purchased and removed to the tract of land known as the "Home Farm," one mile south of Orrville, and owned by him at his death. There he continued his residence until 1850, when the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad being located, he purchased land in and around where the village of Orrville is situated, and whither he immediately removed and continued to reside until his death, which occurred April 23, 1865.
His wife, Maria Orr, was born in Ligonier Valley, Pa., March 10, 1799, and when a small girl immigrated with her father, David Foreman, grandfather of Enos Foreman, former editor of the Wooster Republican, to the neighborhood of Economy, on the Ohio river, from which place she came with her father to what is now known as Baughman township. Her mother having died a very short time before their immigration to the country, she assumed entire household management of her father's house in the thirteenth year of her age. On the 1st of February, 1821, she became the wife of the subject of this memoir, residing with her husband from that time in East Union, Baughman, and from the spring of 1851 until her death in the village of Orrville, Greene township. During her married life, in addition to her own son, Hon. William M. Orr, she became the foster-mother of ten orphan children, four boys and six girls. She was plain in her manners, kind and affable, and but little disposed to visit or leave home; her greatest enjoyment consisting in receiving and entertaining friends and neighbors at her own house, where she was almost constantly to be found. It may be said of her, as Logan said of himself, "Who ever entered her cabin hungry and she gave him not meat?"
In the fifteenth year of her age, she embrace religion and united with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which she remained a member until one year after her marriage, when she united with the Presbyterian church, at Applecreek, of which her husband was a member. From that congregation they were transferred by certificate to the Presbyterian church at Dalton. She died as she had lived, a believer in revealed religion, expressing a firm and unfaltering hope and confidence in Jesus, her Savior.
Our pen has neither the cunning nor the ability to describe or analyze the parts which entered into the mental and physical composition of Judge Orr. Entering the county, then a dens wilderness, when he was but fifteen years of age, he became, like the oaks surrounding him, a very child of the woods.
The spirit of poesy, which is said to hover over the forests, awoke no inspirations in his breast. If, as Byron says,
"There is society, where none intrudes,"
Then he could love "nature more,." If "not man the less." The approach of the bear, the howl of the wolf, the alarm signal of the rattlesnake, the yell of the wild Indian, constituted the sources of his early fears. Nature, however, may have tried to delight and instruct him, and if the barn was not built for the swallow and the hedge-row not set for the thrush, the wild singers of the woods serenaded him with music. He could watch the lithe deer bounding through the thickets, catch design and beauty in the woodland blossoms, and take lessons in philosophy, as nature, blending storm and sunshine, drew God's promise on the cloud.
We can imagine that the life of Judge Orr, at that time, was characterized by more fact than fancy, and that, instead of having margins of poetry, it was filled out to the rim in solid and serious prose. There were no school laws in Ohio then, and schoolhouses and school teachers but faintly glimmered in dream-land. He may have learned the alphabet in the old family Bible, and studied his arithmetic leaning over his knees at the cabin fire. Under the circumstances which did exist he acquired an education, not such as is attainable at the college or university; but his heart, feelings, soul, mind, brain, susceptibilities, all were disciplined in the school of self-denial and experience. It drilled and fitted him for a useful life, made him a benefit and blessing to his fellow-men, who turned to him in adversity for help, and who also sought his counsel and advice when "the winds down the river were fair."
Such a man as Judge Orr could not well have grown up in any country but his own. He was made what he was under divine guidance, solely by his own irresistible will and the inexorable circumstances surrounding a pioneer. He was an original, modeled himself after no pattern, imitated no man's manners, but with strong practical common sense convictions of what a high-minded Christian gentleman should be an do, he struggled perseveringly with fearless, unquailing, mighty will and arm and a warm, heroic heart and faith to be it and to do it. With an ear eve r inclined to hear a tale of sickness, suffering or misfortune, and a hand and head ever ready with aid and counsel in need, his purpose was to do everything well that he undertook, however humble the task.
He was elected to the office of Justice of the Peace at an early day, and repeatedly re-elected, through all party malignities and asperities, holding the position for over a quarter of a century. He was elected in the year 1846 by the General Assembly of Ohio as one of the Associate Judges of the Common Pleas Court, which place he honorably and with signal ability filled until the adoption of the new Constitution in 1853, which abolished the office. Besides many other public positions which he occupied with credit, it may be mentioned that he was many times chosen by his political party - the Clay Whigs - as a candidate for election to responsible public positions, when the party in his locality was in the minority.
He was a member of the Union Convention which met in Baltimore in 1864 and renominated Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency, casting his first vote for him, and upon the vote for Vice-President in the convention Judge Orr and the Hon. Harrison G. Blake, by their votes, decided the vote of the Ohio delegation in favor of Andrew Johnson as the candidate, and the vote of Ohio nominated Governor Johnson over Governor Hicks, now deceased.
He was Land Surveyor for forty years, and throughout the entire eastern part of the county his services in this respect were of incalculable value to the citizens. During the war of the rebellion he held no middle ground, but was decided, outspoken and pronounced in his sympathy and support of the Government. When Cincinnati was threatened by the Confederate forces he placed himself at the head of a company (being then sixty-six years of age) of Squirrel Hunters, and succeeded in reaching the city, an achievement of which a majority of the companies could not boast.
His patriotism was intense, ardent and glowing. Convince Judge Orr that he was right, and legions of armed men could not prevent an effort to perform it. Stir up the lion in the old man's breast, and the hot blood which he imported from the rarest island of the seas rose to its ebb, and if it was to smite a wrong he would dash forward, regardless of opposition. What he undertook to do he did with all his might.
His motto was -
"Act - act in the living present'
Heart within and God o'erhed!"
Yesterday is past, today will be wiser, and if tomorrow comes, better. He had an indomitable perseverance and will, and believed, with Richelieu, that -
"In youth's bright Lexicon there's no such word as fail."
He was possessed of a wide benevolence, a clear and comprehensive understanding, and an unflinching persistency and tenacity of aim. He was a thoughtful and discriminating student, an excellent historian, and with the political literature and transactions of the country, enjoyed the utmost familiarity. He was a fluent and convincing speaker, indulging in fact, detail and narration, seldom ornamental and never speculative.
He was a Presbyterian of the old school and faith, and belonged to the class of which Rev. T. A. McCurdy speaks in his history of the Wooster (Pres.) church, who "had in them the ring of the true metal, and blue was their color." Aside from his public duties and labors Judge Orr, by his own unaided individual energy and skill, out of noting acquired, built up and managed an estate sufficiently large to gratify any ordinary and reasonable ambition. But that which he acquired in his life, above all things to be admired and emulated, was the good name he left among men. To merit this in a sincere, earnest and Christian-like way was, whilst he lived upon earth, his chiefest ambition.
He died in the full faith of the resurrection and the eternal morning after the night of the grave, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust" in Him whose death was not only the world's example, but its sacrifice and life. Of his own issue surviving him are one son and three grandchildren.
From History of Wayne County, Ohio, From the Days of the Pioneers and First Settlers to the Present Time, by Robert Douglass, 1878