• The cemetery, a potter’s field for unclaimed remains, sits on Franklin Church Road in Weller Township of Richland County. The county home can be seen in the distance. The infirmary was founded in 1845, but burned in 1878, destroying the paperwork that recorded exactly where Orrin Pharris was buried.

  • Orrin Pharris is buried in the cemetery for indigent patients at the Richland County Home. The old fiddler was taken to the home after he collapsed while playing at a dance in Shelby. The shallow depressions in this field mark burial locations of generations of poor people. The exact position of Pharris’ grave is unknown.

  • The county home where Orrin Pharris died is today known as Dayspring, and is housed in a building constructed after the infirmary suffered its second fire, in 1924.

  • Orrin Pharris was a prominent musician of this region in the early 1800s. Disfigured by an attack in Granville in 1832, Pharris became mentally unstable and took to wandering the area, playing for food and board. This etching, based on a now-lost photograph, appeared in McLaughlin’s 1887 book about early pioneers of the region.

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Community investment made this reporting happen. Independent, local news in Shelby and Northern Richland County is brought to you in part by the generous support of Phillips Tube Group, R.S. Hanline, ArcelorMittal, Lloyd Rebar, Hess Industries, and Shelby Printing.