Blake Orr [ 1847 (Approx.) - ]

Blake Orr was certainly in Fenelon Falls by 1871. He is listed in the 1871 Census [under “Blaker Orr”] as a 24 year-old, Ontario-born, general blacksmith of Protestant Irish background. Orr formed a partnership with the wagon maker Francis Sandford soon after his arrival, and “Sandford and Orr” operated a “wagons and blacksmith” shop from 1871 to 1872. The partnership appears to have been dissolved sometime before July 1873, as Orr appears under his own name in D&B after that date. He began construction of a new blacksmith and wagon shop sometime before December 1876 [CP 1 Dec 1876; 1], one of the few references to him in the press. He vanishes from the record after 1878.