John P. Ordway

Who was John P. Ordway?

John Pond Ordway was a doctor, composer, music entrepreneur, and politician.

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, in the mid-1840s John Ordway and his father Aaron opened a music store in Boston. John was also a music publisher and composer; his song Twinkling Stars are Laughing, Love was recorded by the Hayden Quartet as late as 1902 and 1904. Dreaming of Home and Mother was a popular sentimental song of the Civil War era, and continues to be played; it is popular in China and Japan in translated versions. Around 1845 he organized Ordway's Aeolians, a blackface minstrel troupe which performed at Ordway Hall in Boston and also nationally to promote Ordway's publishing business. Future bandleader/composer Patrick Gilmore worked in Ordway's store and also appeared with the Aeolians. James Lord Pierpont's first major composition "The Returned Californian" in 1852 was written expressly for Ordway and his troupe. A number of 19th century songs were written for the Aeolians and/or dedicated to Ordway, including Jingle Bells.