John Ormsby (settler)

John Ormsby (1720–1805) was a soldier in the French and Indian War, Pontiac's Rebellion, and the American Revolution, and among the first settlers of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Oliver Ormsby married Deborah Barry, the child of a junior branch of the House of Barrymore, whose founder achieved fame in the Eighty Years' War.

There Ormsby established a small teaching academy in Philadelphia in 1753; the following year, he taught in Lancaster and York, Pennsylvania, and Alexandria, Virginia, in 1754.

John Ormsby wrote of this, "there was not a pound of good flour or meat to serve the garrison and a number of the inhabitants who joined me to do duty."

English troops under the command of Henry Bouquet arrived with food and munitions and defeated the Indians surrounding Fort Pitt.

[4] John Ormsby received a land grant from George III in 1763 for 3,000 acres (12 km2) along the south shore of the Monongahela River, in return for his military service.

[4] This land stretched from the present-day Smithfield Street Bridge to Becks Run Road along the Monongahela River; Ormsby called it Homestead Farms.

The case was seen by the judge due to complications of death intestate, but the land remained in the ownership of the Ormsby descendants by the court's decision.