Former Police Chief Joseph L. Orr Recalled, Jan. 2, 1922

Picture Shows Former Police. . . Chief Orr’s Father Was Head of Force at the Time Photograph Was Taken

An interesting photograph showing the Charlotte police force has been presented to Chief Walter B. Orr by Warren Roark of the city. The photograph occupies a place of honor on Chief Orr’s desk.

At the time the picture was made the last Joseph L. Orr, father of the present head of the Charlotte force, was chief of police. He was the famous one-armed chief around whom many traditions of prowess, of daring and resourcefulness center. Having been one of five brothers who left their parental home near sugar Creek church, this county, and enlisted in one of the early companies that was recruited here for service in the Confederate Army, Joseph L. Orr lost his left arm from a wound received on a Virginia battlefield. Notwithstanding this, in a day when reconstruction of the South was under way and Federal troops were quartered here for a period—at the Southern passenger station side—and carpet-baggers and negroes were much to the fore, the Confederate soldier made a reputation for efficiency as a police chief that became known far beyond the bounds of North Carolina. He is shown as a slender but brawny young man with a light growth of side whiskers.

Of the seven other men in the group, some, and perhaps all, had been Confederate soldiers. Colonel Lawson A. Blackwelder, a tall lanky chap who looked a little like Abraham Lincoln, smoothly shaved, is another interesting study of “the force” as it was shortly after the War Between the States. Many tales also are extant of his prowess and daring as a soldier and a policeman who was a terror to evil-doers. One of the traditions that lingers with his name is that if he decided to overhaul a fleeing man he would sit down, take off his shoes and outrun him, the legend being that he was never outdistanced by a fleeing man under those conditions.

Henry Hill, Mike Haley, a Mr. McKay, Kendrick Stevens and George Farrington were other members of the ancient force. The last-mentioned was a brother of Capt. J.T. Farrington of the present force. Mr. McKay was a one-armed man also, leaving one arm on the battlefield. He wore the long, black, silky, flowing beard that characterized many of the stalwarts of the Confederate army and that is worn by every one of the celebrities in the famous painting “Lee and his generals.”

The picture was found by Mr. Roark among some of his trunks or chests. It is highly prized by Chief Orr.

From The Charlotte News, Monday, Jan. 2, 1922