Samuel H. Ordway

The Ordways were from Essex County, Massachusetts, but his father, a coal and iron dealer and sales agent, spent periods of time in New York City on business.

John Pond Ordway (1824-1880), their uncle, was a successful song composer and music publisher in Boston (Jingle Bells is dedicated to him).

By the early 1880s Ordway's father had become an executive for the wealthy Sayles family of Rhode Island, managing their Interlaken Mills textile business.

In 1906 he was a member of a state commission to revise tax laws, and he was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the New York Supreme Court, 1st Judicial District.

[2] In 1908 he was appointed by governor Charles Evans Hughes as a commissioner to investigate corruption accusations against Queens borough president Joseph Bermel, who fled to Europe.