When Oliver Orton was born on 12 March 1764, in Tyringham, Berkshire, Massachusetts, United States, his father, John Orton Sr, was 46 and his mother, Mary Slater, was 30. He married Dorcas Squires. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 3 daughters. He died in 1846, in Fairfax, Franklin, Vermont, United States, at the age of 82, and was buried in Fairfax, Franklin, Vermont, United States.
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Thomas Jefferson's American Declaration of Independence endorsed by Congress. Colonies declare independence.
"""At the end of the Second Continental Congress the 13 colonies came together to petition independence from King George III. With no opposing votes, the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ready for all delegates to sign on the Fourth of July 1776. While many think the Declaration was to tell the King that they were becoming independent, its true purpose was to be a formal explanation of why the Congress voted together to declare their independence from Britain. The Declaration also is home to one of the best-known sentences in the English language, stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."""""""
Caused by war veteran Daniel Shays, Shays' Rebellion was to protest economic and civil rights injustices that he and other farmers were seeing after the Revolutionary War. Because of the Rebellion it opened the eyes of the governing officials that the Articles of Confederation needed a reform. The Rebellion served as a guardrail when helping reform the United States Constitution.
English: habitational name from any of various places called Orton in Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Westmorland. All those in England share a second element from Old English tūn ‘enclosure, settlement’, but the first element in each case is more difficult to determine. Examples in Cambridgeshire and Warwickshire are on the banks of rivers, so these are probably derived from Old English ōfer ‘riverbank’; in other cases it is impossible to distinguish between ofer ‘ridge’ and ufera ‘upper’. Orton in Westmorland is probably formed with the Old Norse byname Orri ‘black-cock’ (the male black grouse). Orton near Fochabers, Scotland, is of uncertain etymology.
Americanized form of Norwegian Årtun: habitational name from the farm name Årtun, found in six places, e.g. in the province of Rogaland, a compound of the genitive case singular of Old Norse á ‘small river’ and tún ‘farm yard (surrounded by buildings)’.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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