John Orr was born in Londonderry in 1748. Orphaned at age 5, he became the ward of Deacon Robert Walker, who became his guardian until Orr was 14.

Deacon Walker was a strict, but fair, disciplinarian, which Orr later said was precisely what he needed. “There was in me by nature, a reckless daring, an obstinacy and self-will,” he said.

After leaving Walker, Orr became a hired laborer. At about age 19, Orr moved with some friends to Maine, where they worked as carpenters. Some of the payment for the work was in “ardent spirits” a few times a day.

“At first, I took the spirits only to avoid singularity but I soon found my appetite increased and would catch myself looking up to the sun to see if eleven o’clock was drawing,” Orr wrote. Convinced that he was in danger of becoming “a drunkard,” he left Maine and returned to Bedford at 21. He and his brother owned a farm, and a few years later, Orr married, had several children and bought out his brother’s interest in the farm.

During the Revolutionary War, he received a Lieutenant’s commission, serving under Gen. John Stark at the Battle of Bennington. He was shot in the knee and lay in the field for several hours until he was dragged by his hands, the battle still raging around him, to a field hospital. The injury left him handicapped for life, “with a running sore” on his leg.

After the war, his children ran the farm, and Orr became a man of public service. He served as representative and senator in the New Hampshire Legislature and held the office of Justice of the Peace, as well as church offices. Of his life, he wrote that he “enjoyed as much happiness as generally falls to the lot of humanity in this world of change.”

Orr died in December 1822 at the age of 74 and is buried in the Old Bedford Cemetery.