CLASS OF 1844
John Morse Ordway was born in Amesbury, Mass., April 23, 1823, being a descendant of James Ordway, who came from England or Wales to Massachusetts in 1635, and settled in Newbury, now Newburyport.
The subject of this sketch passed the first seven years of his life in Amesbury, and afterward lived in Lowell till 1840. At the age of thirteen, having completed the Lowell high school course, he was really prepared for college, but being too young to enter, he became apprenticed to an apothecary, an Englishman, who was considerable of a chemist. The latter not fulfilling his part of the contract, the young apprentice left at the end of three years, and after devoting one year more to college preparation, he entered Dartmouth in 1840.
Being graduated in 1844, he commenced the study of medicine, but was soon induced to engage in the manufacture of chemicals in Lowell. In 1847 he became superintendent of the Roxbury Color and Chemical Company's works in Roxbury, Mass., but at the end of three years he went west, to Illinois, with an older brother. After seeing his brother, sister, and mother settled in their new home, he pursued his way to St. Louis, and very soon made an arrangement to teach in Grand River College, near Tren ton, Mo.
In the course of three years the entire control of the school passed into his hands, and, being apparently, settled, he married Miss Virginia C. Moore. But in 1854 the college building was burned to the ground, and means could not be obtained to erect another. After continuing the school for a time in a hired building, he was invited back to his former position in Roxbury.
Meanwhile the chemical works had suffered much from mismanagement, and it proved a very difficult task to restore them to a prosperous condition. During the commercial crisis of 1857 the company collapsed.
. Mr. Ordway then accepted the offer of a place in the Hughesdale Chemical Works in Johnston, R. 1., where he remained until called to the Manchester Print Works at Manchester, N. H., in 1860.
He served the company for three years as chemist, then for a year as manager, then as superintendent. As the aniline colors were at that time just coming into use, there was much scope for chemical skill in the application of these exceedingly costly dyes to printed fabrics.
In 1865 Mr. Ordway removed to Jamaica Plain, near Boston, and being engaged as chemist by the Bayside Alkali Works of South Boston, and by the Hughesdale Chemical Works of Johnston, R. I., he spent alternate days at the two places.
In 1869 he was appointed professor of industrial chemistry and metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and gave up the position in Rhode Island. A few years later, in 1874, the Bayside Chemical Works were destroyed by fire, after which event his whoe tilme was devoted to the duties of his professorship, which were now made to include instruction in biology — a new branch then for the first time introduced into the curriculum.
In 1877 he was made chairman of the faculty of the institute, and for four years performed most of the duties of the. president, while continuing, at the same time, the instruction of his classes. In 1884 he went to New Orleans, having been appointed professor of applied chemistry, and director of the Manual Training Department, in Tulane University of Louisiana. He also organized the biological department, and gave the instruction in that branch until 1890; and when the Newcomb College for women was added to Tulane University, he became professor of. biology in that institution. The course in biology being well established, a special professor was appointed for that work in 1891, and Mr. Ordway assumed the instruction in engineering, again introducing a branch not previously taught there.
His first wife died in Rhode Island in 1860, leaving one daughter, now the wife of Rev. Edward S. Tead of Somerville, Mass. In 1864 he married the widow of Capt. N. S. Manross of Forestville, Conn., who lived until 1873, and bore one daughter, Mrs. Arthur C. Kastler of New Orleans. In 1882 he was united in marriage with Miss Evelyn M. Walton, who was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the class of 1881. In the same year he went with his wife to Europe, and visited England, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Den. mark, and Holland, with the special object of studying the system of industrial education in those countries. Discovering, unexpectedly, the slöjd schools of Stockholm, he learned of the Slöjd Teachers' Seminary at Naäs, Sweden, which he also visited.
After returning to Boston he translated from the Danish an excellent account of the Swedish system, then very little known, which was published by the Massachusetts Board of Education, and was reprinted in London, in connection with the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Industrial Education.
He has been active in promoting the cause of manual training, a.nd during a very busy life has found time to do something in the way of scientific investigation. The results have partly appeared in several papers contributed to the American Journal of Science. Other work relating to lubricating oils, and to nonconducting coverings for steam pipes, has been made known by the Manufacturers' Insurance Company, at whose expense the numerous ex. periments were made.
In 1897 he gave up the heavier work which had so closely occupied him at Tulane, and continued only with* the instruction in biology at Newcomb. This gave him more leisure for research work, and he devoted considerable time to an investigation of the water supply of New Orleans, — the water of the Mississippi river. After much experimenting he devised a process for clarifying the water by chemical means, which then made possible rapid and effectual filtration through a bed of sand. The peculiar nature of the sediment held in suspension in the water of the Mississippi river renders it exceedingly difficult to filter without some previous treatment, and, until within the past year or so, the water has never been supplied to the city in a filtered condition. The process which he finally became convinced was superior to all others, he patented.
Owing to increasing infirmities of age, in 1904 he severed his connection with Newcomb College, but still continued, when health permitted, to devote time to chemical research' during the winter months, which were spent in New Orleans. His last scientific paper was published in the American Journal of Science about 1907.
He passed away at the age of eighty-six at his summer home in Saugus, Mass., July 4, 1909. Though always far from robust, he was characterized by unflagging industry, and possessed both patience and perseverance in a remarkable degree. He was of a gentle, retiring disposition, . exceedingly modest in regard to his attainments. His studious habits were continued through life, and, in addition to his scientific pursuits, he acquired a reading knowledge of many different languages.
