FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — More than 180 years after his tragic death, the city of Fayetteville has officially recognized Native American Nelson Orr with a memorial plaque.
In 1839, Orr was stabbed to death in a local grocery store after defending a Cherokee woman who had been insulted by a local resident. His death happened during the Trail of Tears — the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 — which Orr had been a part of.
On Dec. 12, 2024, the city dedicated a plaque in Orr's memory. Local historian and author J.B. Hogan, who played a significant role in this memorial, emphasized the importance of keeping Orr's story alive.
"After time, these stories just drop out of the public consciousness and nobody knows anything about them," Hogan said. "It's good to bring them back, in my opinion."
Hogan said Orr had been mischaracterized as a "desperado" but was, in fact, connected to the highest levels of Cherokee leadership.
Wilson Wallace, the man who stabbed Orr, was also responsible for extraditing Nelson Hackett, an escaped enslaved man, back to the United States from Canada in 1841. There is now a marker at the northwest corner of the square honoring Hackett.
"There was a great injustice done to Nelson Hackett, and there was a great injustice done to Nelson Orr," Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan said. "What I love about this city is that we may not always have been a perfect city, but you know what? At the end of the day, we take injustice and make justice out of it."
Jordan said the new plaque represents a correction of a historical wrong.
"Today is a great example of a correction of a mistake that was made many, many years ago. An injustice that was done many, many years ago," he said. "We have righted a great wrong."
The plaque honoring Orr has been installed in a flowerbed in front of the Experience Fayetteville Visitors Center at the corner of South Block Avenue and West Mountain Street.
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