Philologist, ornithologist and mammalogist, once vice-president of the American Philosophical Society, and president of the Academy of Natural Sciences from 1851 to 1858. With Alexander Lawson, he belittled everything Audubon did, chiefly because of his great admiration for Alexander Wilson. His annotations in the Academy's copy of the Audubon Ornithological Biography are far from complimentary.

His papers consist of a notation, stating that the party, consisting of Theodore Dwight, Mr. Tuttle, Dr. Mactier and George Ord, visited Caserta on January 31, 1821; records of the purchase of his “Dictionnaire de Sciences Naturelles”, mostly from Maclure, 1818-22; transcripts of letters written by Ord to: George Bancroft, 1845; Charles L. Bonaparte, 1842; Richard Cobden, 1862; Alexander Henry, 1858; Sir James Stuart Monteath, 1862; Charles Waterton, 1858; three letters from Peter Williamson and three from Norman Moore about letters from his friend Waterton which were to be returned to London; Ord's rough and final drafts of his biography of Lesuer and various notes in Ord's hand concerning other matters.

The majority from Frank S. Stone in 1896, having been given to him by J. N. Stone, Sr., who received them from Peter Williamson, George Ord's executor.