Introduction

Biography

Ordway is re­mem­bered as a doc­tor, mu­sic en­tre­pre­neur, and pol­i­ti­cian.

In the mid-1840s, he and his fa­ther Aar­on op­ened a mu­sic store in Bos­ton. John was al­so a mu­sic pub­lish­er and com­pos­er.

His songs Twink­ling Stars and Laugh­ing, Love (1855) were re­cord­ed by the Hay­den Quar­tet as late as 1902 and 1904. Dream­ing of Home and Mo­ther (1851) was a po­pu­lar sen­ti­ment­al song of the Am­er­ican civ­il war era, and con­tin­ues to be play­ed; it has been po­pu­lar in Chi­na and Ja­pan in trans­la­tions.

Around 1845 he or­gan­ized Or­dway’s Ae­o­li­ans, a black­face min­strel troupe which per­formed at Ord­way Hall in Bos­ton and na­tion­al­ly, to pro­mote Ord­way’s pub­lish­ing bu­si­ness.

Future band lead­er and com­pos­er Pat­rick Gil­more 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 19th Cen­tu­ry songs were writ­ten for the Ae­o­li­ans and/or de­di­cat­ed to Ord­way, in­clud­ing Jin­gle Bells.

Graduating from Har­vard Me­di­cal Col­lege in 1859, Ord­way was one of the first sur­geons to vol­un­teer at the start of the Am­er­ican ci­vil war, serv­ing in the 6th Re­gi­ment, Mas­sa­chu­setts Vol­un­teer In­fan­try. He was one of the Un­ion sur­geons sent to tend to the wound­ed af­ter the Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg.

Ordway served on Bos­ton’s School Board (1859–73), and one term (1868) in the Mas­sa­chu­setts Ge­ne­ral Court. He op­posed cor­por­al pun­ish­ment in schools, spon­sor­ing a bill to that ef­fect in the le­gis­la­ture.

Ordway al­so helped found the Mas­sa­chu­setts Ang­ler’s As­so­cia­tion, the fore­run­ner to the Mas­sa­chu­setts Fish and Game As­so­ci­ation.