Dr. Edward Francis Baxter Orton, Sr., was born on March 9, 1829, in Deposit, Delaware County, New York.

He was a geologist and educator. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1848 and continued to study at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati (1849-1850), Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard (1852–1853), and then Andover Theological Seminary. He was ordained minister in 1856. Dr. Orton became a Professor of Geology in 1856, teaching in New York until 1865 when he accepted a position at Antioch College in Ohio. He would later serve as Antioch's President in 1872. In 1873, he began working at the Ohio State University in Columbus, serving as the first President and Professor of Geology. He stepped down as President in 1881 but remained as a Professor of Geology until 1883. In 1869, he was appointed to the State Geological Survey and served as assistant state geologist of Ohio (1869-1875). He was named state geologist in 1882 and continued in that position until his death in 1899. He was president of the Geological Society of America (1896) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1898–1899). Dr. Orton's fossil collections can be found at the Orton Geological Museum, housed in Orton Hall of the Ohio State University, named after him in 1891.

In 1855, he married Mary Matilda Jennings (1833–1873), and in 1875, he married Anna Davenport Torrey (1841–). He died on October 16, 1899, in Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio.