Sacramento County
Biographies
SILAS ORR
SILAS ORR.--A fearlessly efficient representative of the California bench, who is equally popular with both the members of the practicing bar and the laymen of the public, is the Hon. Silas Orr, justice of the peace of American Township. He was born on a farm in the good old agricultural state of Minnesota, on February 28, 1869, the son of Andrew R and Margaret (Cooper) Orr, and he grew up in a pioneer Minnesota home, for his father was a farmer there and did much to help develop that part of the state in settler days. He had walked to Minnesota, from Brownsville, and had homesteaded for a while; and now that his earthly course has ended, it is pleasant to record that men speak well of him. Mrs. Orr is still living, in Sacramento, Cal., and as becomes his widow, maintains her old-time hospitality to all who call upon her, and gives of her means to such worthy causes as she can.
Silas Orr attended the grammar schools in the country, and then the high school at La Crosse, Wis. Then he went to St. Paul, where he entered the shops of the Great Northern Railroad, and learned the machine woodmaker’s trade, which he followed there for four years. In 1890, he came to California and Sacramento, and for three years he continued to work at the same trade in the shops of the Southern Pacific. He then engaged in the hardware and implement business for twelve years, but selling out, he took to his ranch of fifteen acres, and there he has been for the past twelve years, during which time he has acted as justice of the peace in American Township, and has recently been reelected without opposition for another four years. He is a Republican, so far as his party preferences are concerned; but Judge Orr is too broad-minded to allow any narrow partisanship to prevent his giving his full and most loyal support to all things well-endorsed locally.
On December 14, 1901, Judge Orr was married to Miss Lilly M. Huebner, a native of Salt Lake, who had been brought to California when she was a babe, so that she is practically a native daughter. One child, Owen, has blessed the union. The Judge belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America; and he is fond of hunting and fishing.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches,
Pages
959-960. Historic Record Company, Los
Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.