From History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Volume II, Publ. by The Western Historical Company 1881, Page 830-831

REV. MOSES ORDWAY was born December 27, 1788, in Haverhill, Mass., a town now embraced within the limits of New Hampshire.  His father was of English and his mother of Scotch parentage, and he inherited from thee latter those strongly defined and positive qualities which characterized the future man.  There being no school in his native town until he was 12 years old, he was denied an early education, and even when the school was opened, his delicate health forbade him attendance until his sixteenth year.  He was exceedingly gifted in the use of all kinds of tools, and intended obtaining his livelihood by handicraft, but at the age of 19 he had a fall which badly fractured the right shoulder, thus obliging him to turn his attention towards something else.  He determined upon studying medicine, and after a two years' course of reading commenced practicing on a limited scale.  About this time he became converted to religion and immediately consecrated his life to the ministry.  In the Spring of 1816, he entered Middlebury College six months in advance of his class.  By teaching Winters and working at his tools Summers, he graduated in 1819, better off financially than when he begun his college course.  Immediately upon his graduation he studied divinity for a year with Rev. Moses SAWYER, in Heneker.  His second theological year was with the Rev. WHITON, of Antrim.  In April 1822, he was licensed by the Hillsborough Association, afterwards preaching eighteen months as a licentiate in the north parts of New Hampshire and Vermont.  In the Autumn of 1823, he removed to Norfolk, St. Lawrence County, N.Y.  Here in the following Spring he was ordained as an Evangelist by the St. Lawrence Presbytery.  At the commencement of his ministerial life, Mr. ORDWAY had formed the resolution never to become a settled pastor.  Both from the sharp individuality which marked his career, and from the style of preaching which he had determined upon, he regarded himself as better fitted to break new ground, and reclaim and fertilize the old and exhausted spiritual soils of Western New York.

He devoted himself to promoting revivals amount the churches in St. Lawrence County.  His labors were crowned with marked success in many places, including Norfolk, Parishville, Russell and Huville.  After seven years labor in St. Lawrence County, he removed to the Genesee Valley in 1830, and renewed his revivals in the counties of Genesee, Monroe, Steuben and Alleghany.  After spending a few months in Michigan, he made a visit to the Territory of Wisconsin, landing at Green Bay in 1836.  Here after a few months' labor he organized the first Presbyterian Church that was planted on Wisconsin soil.  The Church numbered eighty at its organization.  In February 1837, in company with Rev. Cutting MARSH, a foreign missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, he made a tour of observation as far south as Milwaukee.  They traveled on Indian ponies and slept on the snow.  Arriving at Milwaukee they found a population of about 280.  After spending two months in preaching and gathering up the scattered materials, on the 13th of April, he organized the First Presbyterian Church of Milwaukee.  This was the second organization of the Calvinistic order, either Presbyterian or Congregational in Wisconsin.  In July, 1838, he removed this family  into the Territory and located at Prairieville, now Waukesha.  For five years he devoted most of his time to missionary labors in the new settlements, extending them as far north as the Stockbridge reservation, and south into the northern counties of Illinois.

Mr. ORDWAY acted a prominent part in laying the foundations of the ecclesiastical organization of the State.  In 1839, he assisted in the formation of the "Wisconsin Presbytery" the mother organization of the Territory.  A year and a half later, October, 1840, he was one of the principal actors in merging the Presbytery into a new organization, under the name of the "Presbyterian and Congregational Convention of Wisconsin."  In the Spring of 1843, he removed to Beaver Dam, where he entered immediately upon the pioneer work, which he continued throughout a long life.  There are few churches in Wisconsin which have not felt his fostering care, and true to his vow of consecration, his last work was to speak words of encouragement to the destitute church at Cambria.  This was his last missionary tour. He died at Cambria at the advanced age of 81 years.

Submitted by Carol