Nelson Orr historical marker dedication Dec. 12

Dec. 3, 2024

Contact: Britin Bostick

Long Range Planning/Special Project Manager

Planning Division

479-575-8262

Nelson Orr historical marker dedication Dec. 12

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The City of Fayetteville will host a historical marker dedication Thursday, Dec. 12, to commemorate Nelson Orr, a Cherokee man who was fatally stabbed near the Fayetteville Square in 1839.

Orr came to Fayetteville via the Trails of Tears, a forced displacement of approximately 60,000 Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the Southeast United States between 1830 and 1850.

The plaque memorializing Orr will be placed in a flowerbed in front of the Experience Fayetteville Visitors Center at the corner of S. Block Avenue and W. Mountain Street. A ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. Speakers will include Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan and Sean Teuton, director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Arkansas.

Research for the historical marker was carried out by Teuton, author J.B. "Jerry" Hogan and Shaun Treat with the University of North Texas. Research materials included property ownership, plat records, Washington County records and historical writings of the incident.

As result of the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations were forcefully emigrated west of the Mississippi River. Orr was a member of the John Benge detachment of the Cherokee Trail of Tears camped near present day Fayetteville High School.

Orr was stabbed in a grocery store by its owner, Willis Wallace, after defending a Cherokee woman who had been insulted by a local. The incident caused an uproar in the community and nearly led to the burning of Fayetteville, according to the research.

Wallace is the same man who had Nelson Hackett, an escaped enslaved man, extradited back from Canada in 1841. In 2023, a marker honoring Hackett was placed in a flowerbed on the northwest corner of the square. Wallace's store was located on Block, between Mountain and W. Center Street.

Orr was connected directly to the Cherokee Nation hierarchy and related by marriage to Sequoyah, author of the Cherokee syllabary, making Cherokees one of the first North American indigenous groups to gain a written language.

To learn more about historic preservation projects in Fayetteville, go to: https://www.fayetteville-ar.gov/4308/Historic-Preservation-Projects.

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