itinerant Presbyterian missionary, businessman, b. Haverhill, Mass. He graduated from Middlebury College in 1819, was licensed to preach in 1822, and spent several years preaching in Vermont and western New York. In 1836 he moved to Wisconsin, arriving in Green Bay, where with Cutting Marsh (q.v.) he established the first Presbyterian church in Wisconsin. In 1843 he moved to Beaver Dam where he maintained a home for most of the remainder of his life. An itinerant missionary, he traveled widely throughout eastern Wisconsin, organizing churches and building meetinghouses. Ordway was also a successful land speculator, and in Beaver Dam operated a sawmill and gristmill. Early Presbyterianism in Wis. Wis. Synod [Waukesha? Wis., 1951]; Chicago Interior, Dec. 1, 1887; Wis. Mag. Hist., 2.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]