Azor Orne

Azor Orne (July 22, 1731 – June 6, 1796), sometimes spelled Azore, was a colonial American merchant, politician and patriot. In the years preceding the American Revolution, Orne built a controversial hospital to quarantine and help smallpox sufferers, became a militia colonel, and was a founding member of the Massachusetts Bay colony's committee of safety. As a scion of a powerful Marblehead, Massachusetts merchant family, Orne lent money to the continental cause but was never repaid. Orne was appointed major general of the wartime militia, and after the revolution, he signed his state's constitution and was one of those who approved the national constitution.

Orne was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, son of merchant Joshua Orne Jr. and Sarah (Gale). His grandfathers were sea captain Azor Gale and merchant Joshua Orne, both of Marblehead. The Orne family descended from John Orne (variously Horn and Horne) who arrived in Salem in 1630, became a freeman in 1631, and served the first church of Salem as deacon for 50 years. The younger Orne was one of three children born to Joshua Jr. and Sarah. After his mother's death, Azor's father married Agnes Stacey, the widow of a friend, John Gallison; Agnes brought several children from her first marriage, and Joshua Jr. and Agnes themselves had three children, at least one of which, Joshua, lived to adulthood.

Orne was a merchant; though an owner and bondsman of several ships, his primary wealth derived from buildings and property. During a smallpox epidemic in 1773 Orne and several associates solicited the town of Marblehead to build an inoculation hospital on Cat Island (now Children's Island). The town refused, but allowed Orne, John Glover, Jonathan Glover and Elbridge Gerry to construct Essex Hospital as a private enterprise. The hospital operated successfully for several months, but by January 1774, several townspeople of Marblehead conspired to burn or destroy all the structures on the island. Orne and his associates lost their entire investments.

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