From - Historical Notes of the Settlement on No. 4 Brown’s Tract In Watson, Lewis County, NY with Notices of the Early Settlers by W. Hudson Stephens, Martinsburgh, 1 June 1864
“Orrin Fenton, (son of Ebenezer) born 1 July 1784, at Mansfield, Conn., successively a resident of Windsor, CT, Champion, and Lowville, and who losing his wife, Clarissa Barber, by whom he had seven children – five now living – afterwards married, at Lowville, Lucy Weller, of Westfield, Mass., (of their three boys and two girls, four survive) settled at No. 4, March 20, 1826. Of all the settlers, but Fenton remains, ‘a rude forefather of the hamlet.’
One incident, illustrative of Fenton’s early forest experience, must suffice. About 1835, Fenton set, about half a mile from Beaver Lake, and ten rods from the river of that name, a wolf trap secure by a chain to a sapling. On visiting his trap, he was somewhat surprised in not finding it, and by marks upon shrubs he traced it into a cedar swamp. Examining carefully, he discovered a ‘big track’ therein, and arming himself with a club, advanced to a closer acquaintance with the possessor of the trap, but finding on the bushes gray hair instead of black, he wisely concluded it was not a bear, but was a wolf, which he might dispatch with his club. While pursuing carefully the track, he looked forward where, crouched upon all fours, beside a log, lay, ten feet from him, a large panther, with the lost trap on his fore foot. Fenton made for the other side of the log with his club, when the panther ran from him some ten rods bearing the trap. Concluding the job (with his club) was a little larger than expected, he returned for his rifle, and was returning with it. I, Wetmore, at forty rods overhauled the panther. Fenton fired at four rods, hitting him below the eye, but did not kill him. He jumped up and faced his adversaries, growled, and savagely showed his ‘ivory,’ when a second shot by Fenton brought him down. He weighed about two hundred pounds, and measured nine feet from tip to tip.”
Listed in the 1860 NY census as a farmer (76, CT), with his wife Lucy (66, MA) and son John (24, NY).