THANKSGIVING by Ellen M. Ferris

Happy Holidays to everyone! Please enjoy a reflective Thanksgiving poem written by Ellen M. Ferris (1843-1876), daughter of Charles Drake Ferris (1812-1850) and niece of Warren Angus Ferris (1810-1873). This poem was published in a Buffalo, New York newspaper (date unknown). Ms. Ferris clipped this and over a 1000 published poems which she admired (including her own) and placed them in her commonplace book collection. The poetry can be found in the Ferris/Lovejoy collection of family papers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

THANKSGIVING

 By Ellen M. Ferris

Through sombre aisles and vaulted roof

    The organ-tones are swelling,

Their grand and solemn harmonies

    Of some high service telling;

And now in murmurs soft and low,

    And now in cadence thrilling,

With under-tones of melody

    The singers’ voices filling.

“All glory be to God on high”-

    So chant the choral voices-

“In whom we live and breathe and move,

     In whom the world rejoices;

Who sends the sunshine and the rain,

    With food for all the living;

To Him our grateful hearts we raise

    With praises and thanksgiving.”

A mother to the chancel rail

    Her little child is leading,

With rich thank-offerings to God,

    Who heard her anguished pleading.

But while for mercies great and strange

    Her costly tribute paying,

Forgets the mercies day by day

    Upon her path arraying.

For each day is a miracle

    Of blessing and forgiving;

God’s tender pity, like the sky,

    Enfoldeth all the living.

We take the gifts His bounty sends

    Ungrateful and cold-hearted,

Without a thought of love or praise,

    Till from us they are parted.

We set aside one meagre day

    Of all our yearly treasure,

Wherewith to pay the homage due

    For blessings beyond measure.

But Thou be merciful, O God,

    Consider Thou our weakness;

Accept the tribute which we pay,

    Though late, with awe and meekness.

Turn Thou our hearts, that we may see

    All things are of Thy sending,

And lift an endless song of praise

    For mercies never-ending;

Till all the radiant angelhood

    Shall aid our poor endeavor

To magnify the Lord our God,

    And praise His name forever.

 Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

Ferris Line of Mayflower Descent

FERRIS:  Those of this name derive from Henri de Ferrers- a great Norman-English lord – who came from Ferriere de St. Hilaire in Normandy.  He took part in the Conquest of England by William of Normandy in the year 1066-his rank in the army was Master of the Horse.  His arms bore six horseshoes-argent-on a field sable.

This is the introduction to the book entitled “The Ferris Ancestry”, which was compiled by Sarah Louise Ferris Austin around 1896.  The book was later type written in 1934 by Mrs. Franklin E. Scotty.  Sarah Louise Ferris was a resident of Buffalo for almost nine decades.  She was born in March of 1850 and died in August 1938. She was the daughter of Charles Drake Ferris (brother to Warren Angus Ferris) and Hester Ann (Bivens) Ferris.  Her father had dreamed of taking his mother, wife, and children to join his brother in Texas, but was never able to break free of financial difficulties in Buffalo.  In 1849, he boarded a ship that is believed, but not proven, to have been lost at sea near Nova Scotia. Sarah Louise was born shortly after his departure, so she never met her father.  Perhaps this is why she had such deep curiosity and passion for researching her family’s ancestry.  She was a lifelong member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of Mayflower Descendants of New York. She shared her father’s love of writing and served as the managing editor of the Buffalo Commercial.  Although she left no surviving children, she did leave a labor of love in the research and documentation she prepared for future generations. Her book is considered by scholars as culturally important and is available through Google Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. 

Within the book, the author meticulously outlines the Ferris line of Mayflower descent revealing that Warren Angus Ferris (WAF) and Charles Drake Ferris (CDF) are direct descendants of eight Mayflower passengers. This is fascinating and enlightening information for descendants of the Ferris brothers.  Please refer to a reproduction of the diagram she prepared.  Mayflower passengers are highlighted in yellow and include Frances Cooke, John Cooke, Richard Warren, William Mullins, Alice Mullins, Priscilla Mullins, John Alden, and Thomas Rogers. One could speculate that the Warren line was the inspiration for Warren Ferris’ and Warren Angus Ferris’ given name. The book is full of personal information and history of these ancestors and is definitely worth reading if you’re interested in the Ferris line. Thanks to Sarah Louise (Ferris) Austin’s tenacity, this work is preserved and available to the descendants and the public.

Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

Julia N. (Judy) Davis reflects on tales of family history

Growing up in a small sleepy Texas town, whose claim to fame was “Sausage Capital of Texas,” left plenty of time to get into trouble or harass your parents because you were bored. My mother was determined that my sister and I would learn historical stories about our ancestors during our free time.

My mother, Nell Been Davis, first introduced us to our great-great grandfather, Warren Angus Ferris, who soon became a “regular guest” at our dinner table. We learned why Grandpa Ferris left his home in New York and became a “Mountain Man” in the Wild West. The reason is still a modern-day problem in families - he and his mother argued about his smoking. We heard outrageous stories about his travels throughout Wyoming and the area that is now known as Yellowstone National Park.

These stories led us into the elementary elements of basic historical research. These were pre-computer days and no internet. That left reading books, visiting Cemeteries and Court Houses. Today, my sister and I still report that we grew up in cemeteries.

In 2019 the Texas Historical Foundation held a board meeting in Jackson, Wyoming. Why Jackson? Back in 1836 this area was considered part of Texas. Fifty miles to the south of Jackson is a small town named Pinedale, home of the Museum of the Mountain Man. A cousin of mine (also a great-great granddaughter of WAF) was traveling with me and we made the scenic drive to see the museum.

The museum was much more than we ever expected. Not seeing WAF’s name among the names mentioned, I sought out the executive director and asked him one question: “Does the name Warren Angus Ferris mean anything to you?” His response was “MEAN ANYTHING?!?! If it were not for Ferris, we would not have this museum. He was literate and wrote beautiful descriptions of the wildlife, geography and the different Indian tribes. Most mountain men were illiterate and could neither read nor write.” The descriptions Ferris sent to his family back in New York eventually became the book LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. And, yes, my mother had me reading the book when I was 10 years old.

My plea to you is to tell stories of your ancestors to the young members in your family - children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews - and build the excitement of your ancestors in their young minds. I felt sorry for my childhood friends who knew nothing of their extended families. And most of them hated history when they were forced to take history classes in school. Me? I was a history major in college.

Julia N. (Judy) Davis

Great-great granddaughter of Warren Angus Ferris

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

The Horse Marines: An article written by Warren Angus Ferris on Oct. 14, 1871

To the Editor of the Dallas Herald:

During the struggle for Texan Independence, there were displayed many acts of personal heroism, indeed they were common enough to produce a momentary gleam like a meteor, and then descend into the dark sea of oblivion, to be followed by other instances of gallant enterprise, calculated to brighten the hopes and animate the spirits of the weary soldiers. Among these flashes of chivalry none were more conspicuous at the moment than the exploits of the gallant little band called “The Horse Marines.”

During the inglorious retreat of General Houston, eastward from the Colorado, about a dozen choice spirits, among whom were Maj. Isaac W. Burton and Charles D. Ferris, being utterly opposed to the retreating policy of the Commander-in-Chief, resolved to take the opposite end of the road and get up a little active service on their own hook. They proceeded westward keeping a sharp look-out for the several divisions of Mexican troops, that were then advancing eastward, and succeeded in getting into the rear of the invaders. Here they hoped to pick up some of Santa Anna’s expresses, but failing in this, they proceeded to the coast near Copano. Here, perceiving a vessel bearing Mexican colors, at no great distance, they enticed a boat ashore by means of a false flag, captured the boat and, having manned it with their own party, boarded and captured the vessel, which proved to be loaded with clothing and stores for the invading army. Leading their horses coastwise to Brazoria, they soon captured a second vessel, also laden with munitions of war, and carried both successfully into the Brazos River. These stores arrived at an auspicious moment, and served to revive the drooping spirits of the retreating army. The citizens of Brazoria bore the gallant Burton on their shoulders to the hotel, and in the exuberant festivity that followed, voted that himself and gallant co-mates should be called “The Horse Marines.” W.A.F.

Dallas Herald, Dallas, Dallas County, Texas, October 14, 1871.

Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

Buffalo Hunting: An Excerpt from "Life in the Rocky Mountains"

“Life in the Rocky Mountains” is an eloquently written journal by Warren Angus Ferris (WAF) in which he recorded his adventures after joining the American Fur Company trapping, trading, hunting expedition to the Rocky Mountains. The journey began February 16, 1830, when WAF was only 17 years old and continued into 1835. His recordings provide insight from his experiences which he poetically described the vast, untamed lands stretching across the American Northwest. He beautifully chronicles the wilderness, Native American tribes and their cultures, and the trade that was the foundation of the westward expansion.

In Chapter V of the journal, WAF uses delicate eloquence to paint an image of the majestic buffalo herds on the Nebraska plains near the Platte River. On the 14th day of May, the company finally encountered their long-pursued buffalo prize. While reading this, just imagine a boy of 17 from Buffalo, New York, witnessing these breathtaking sights and having such deep appreciation for the beauty of it all, that he recorded it in a diary to share with others. Fortunately, WAF was able to capture a scenic moment in time when the American plains were literally covered with buffalo. Based on his words, the experience must have been joyous for him, and it is certainly awe-inspiring to read today.

On the fourteenth, hurrah, boys! we saw a buffalo; a solitary, stately old chap, who did not wait an invitation to dinner, but toddled off with his tail in the air.  We saw on the sixteenth a small herd of ten or twelve, and had the luck to kill one of them.  It was a patriarchal fellow, poor and tough, but what of that? we had a roast presently, and champed the gristle with a zest.  Hunger is said to be a capital sauce, and if so our meal was well seasoned, for we had been living for some days on boiled corn alone, and had the grace to thank heaven for meat of any quality.  Our hunters killed also several antelopes, but they were equally poor, and on the whole we rather preferred the balance of the buffalo for supper.  People soon learn to be dainty, when they have a choice of viands.  Next day, oh, there they were, thousands and thousands of them!  Far as the eye could reach the prairie was literally covered, and not only covered but crowded with them.  In very sooth it was a gallant show; a vast expanse of moving, plunging, rolling, rushing life - a literal sea of dark forms, with still pools, sweeping currents, and heaving billows, and all the grades of movement from calm repose to wild agitation.  The air was filled with dust and bellowings, the prairie was alive with animation, - I never realized before the majesty and power of the mighty tides of life that heave and surge in all great gatherings of human or brute creation.  The scene had here a wild sublimity of aspect, that charmed the eye with a spell of power, while the natural sympathy of life with life made the pulse bound and almost madden with excitement.  Jove but it was glorious! and the next day too, the dense masses pressed on in such vast numbers, that we were compelled to halt, and let them pass to avoid being overrun by them in a literal sense.  On the following day also, the number seemed if possible more countless than before, surpassing even the prairie‑ blackening accounts of those who had been here before us, and whose strange tales it had been our wont to believe the natural extravagance of a mere travellers' turn for romancing, but they must have been true, for such a scene as this our language wants words to describe, much less to exaggerate.  On, on, still on, the black masses come and thicken - an ebless deluge of life is moving and swelling around us!

As years passed in his journey, WAF noted in Chapter LIX, his concern about the senseless slaughter of millions of buffalo for sport and predicted their annihilation within 10 years from that period.

Beaver and other kinds of game become every year more rare; and both the hunters and Indians will ultimately be compelled to herd cattle, or cultivate the earth for a livelihood; or in default of these starve.  Indeed the latter deserve the ruin that threatens their offspring, for their inexcusable conduct, in sacrificing the millions of buffalo which they kill in sport, or for their skins only. 

It is a prevailing opinion among the most observing and intelligent hunters, that ten years from this period, a herd of buffalo will be a rare sight, even in the vast plain between the Rocky Mountains, and the Mississippi. Though yet numerous, they have greatly decreased within the last few years.  The fact is alarming and has not escaped the notice of some shrewd Indians, who however believe the evil to be unavoidable.

Introduction to Life in the Rocky Mountains, by W. A. Ferris (mtmen.org)

Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

Ferris Family: Lovers of Prose and Verse

Warren Angus Ferris and his brother, Charles Drake Ferris, were both gifted writers. Although they received limited formal education, the Ferris brothers were well read, with interests in history, literature, mathematics, the arts, and language. The Ferris/Lovejoy collection of family papers reveals an entire family of skilled writers of prose and verse.

Charles Drake Ferris and his wife Hester A. (Bivens) Ferris, had 5 children. Their daughter, Ellen May Ferris was born May 2nd, 1843. She graduated from Buffalo Central High School in 1861 and became a public school teacher. She died November 26, 1876, unmarried and without children. She possessed elegant literary ability and had a passion for poetry. Many of her poems were published in New York and Buffalo papers and periodicals. In 1867, her poem “Narcissus” won a literary prize of $50 worth of books from the Young Men’s Library Association of Buffalo. Ellen kept a scrap-book hoarding of poems written by herself and by other poets whom she admired. The scrap-book has over 1000 poems which she clipped from newspapers and pasted into her collection. It’s a beautiful collection of writing that gives the reader an inside view of the wonders and woes of the people during their times and times past. Interestingly, there are several poems capturing the expressions of emotions from citizens during the Civil War. The scrap-book is held at the Tom L. Perry Special Collections Library at BYU in Provo, Utah. It is my hope to someday see this poem collection made public, either through a published collection or through a website.

The story of Narcissus is an intriguing tale from Greek mythology. Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was known to be a very beautiful young man. After rejecting all romantic advances from others, he eventually falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. He vainly stares at his own image for the rest of his life. After he died, a golden flower sprouted, bearing his name. His story is a warning against vanity and self-adoration, thus the origin of the term narcissism.

NARCISSUS by Ellen May Ferris (1867)

He lay reclining on a fountain's brink,

Narcissus, fairest youth of mortal mold;

Half-closed his radiant eyes, adown his neck

Wide rolled his hair in waves of living gold;

The earth was lapped in summer's purple haze,

Enamored zephyrs kissed his ivory brow,

The fountain murinured softly in his ear,

A wild bird twittered from a neighboring bough;

All summer sights, all pleasant summer sounds

Allured him, and he drank in their delight,

And in delicious languors steeped his soul,

As flowers are steeped in sunshine hot and bright -

But at his heart eternal longing lay,

A longing that half pleasure was, half pain;

A dream of beauty never yet fulfilled,

A dream whose substance he had sought in vain.

“Why did the gods make me thus beautiful,

Why give me this sweet sense of all things fair,

Yet place me lonely, in a lonely land

With no dear soul my happiness to share?

“For oh! it is a blessedness to feel

Myself thus beautiful and I am blest;

But were there yet some fair and golden head

To smooth its curls, to pillow on my breast;

“To gather kisses from its vermeil lips,

To answer in low silver speech to mine,

To read soft passion in its tender eyes,

Oh! then were life, indeed, a thing divine.

“Yet, there are many young and many fair,

And some who love me. It perchance were well

If I could win some fond and gentle nymph

And in sweet peace and calm affection dwell.

“But they who from the gods have godlike gifts

Seem by their very gifts men set apart

From all the world; by common joys and griefs

Untouched, no common love can fill the heart.

“And such am I, and thus I wait and watch

For her, the goddess beautiful and bright,

Who shall unlock the chambers of my soul

And bring its secret treasures forth to light.

“I feel —I feel the appointed hour has come,

I feel — I feel the goddess now is near;

The murmuring fountain seems to call her name.

O love, my beautiful! appear! appear!

And gazing down into the crystal pool

What face is this smiles up into his own?

Oh! never since on mortal's favored sight

Hath face of such unearthly fairness shone.

Half-parted were the lips of vermeil bloom,

The azure eyes of amorous passion told;

Adown the ivory brow and polished neck,

Wide rolled the hair in waves of living gold.

Entranced he gazed upon the pictured face,

Wildly he called the goddess, but in vain.

She smiled upon him with soft luring eyes,

She smiled and smiled but answered not again.

Unhappy youth, well works the evil charm,

Who loves himself too well shall woe betide.

Thenceforth none knew Narcissus in the land,

But by that fatal pool he pined and died.

“Narcissus” poem written by Ellen M. Ferris, 1867, and reproduced from “The Poets and Poetry of Buffalo” by James Johnston, copyright 1904

Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

The Making of a Historic Texas Cemetery

Suzanne Starling, the author of “Land is the Cry! Warren Angus Ferris, Pioneer Texas Surveyor and Founder of Dallas County”, recently passed away at the age of 89.  She was an author, educator, researcher, and historian. Her sharp mind and unwavering tenacity created a beautiful book which was the culmination of 14 years of research on the early west pioneer. She was instrumental in obtaining recognition of the old Ferris burial ground as a Historic Texas Cemetery. A great deal of her research material was obtained from the Ferris-Lovejoy family papers collection housed in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections department of The Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The collection is comprised of 10 boxes which includes correspondence, legal documents, genealogy, memorabilia, poetry, literary manuscripts, photographs, etc. dating from 1771-1964. Upon its inception, the Special Collections Department set a goal to collect materials that document Mormon Americana and materials that document the history of the American west. Because Warren Angus Ferris was known as an early west trapper, cartographer, and diarist, his family documents and his map entitled “Map of the Northwest Fur Country” were purchased and are preserved by BYU. 

As a great-granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris (WAF), I’ve had great curiosity about the Ferris-Lovejoy collection. I’ve visited the collection 4 times in the past 5 years. Most of the collection is correspondence between WAF and his mother and siblings. The Lovejoy portion of the collection pertains mostly to WAF’s half-brother, A. Clarence (Joshua).  It’s a marvelous collection of beautiful letters, poetry, and diaries written by the Ferris-Lovejoy family members.  This collection was compiled by Mr. Walter McCausland, a stamp collector and historian.   

Within the collection I found quite a bit of information about the Ferris family cemetery. Ferris homesteaded on 640 acres in the area of White Rock Lake, which is now includes the Forest Hills community. Upon the death of his young son in 1847, he donated a plot of land for a community cemetery and buried his child there.  Ferris, his second wife Frances, and 5 children are buried there.  The Ferris cemetery is now 176 years old. It is estimated that there are over 100 graves in the cemetery.  

A great deal of the cemetery history found in the collection was passed from generation to generation through oral tradition. Some of the information may be anecdotal and some may be factual.  The following information is taken from letters written to Walter McCausland by descendants of WAF and from contacts who had helpful information.  Factual or not, it’s interesting material. 

In 1959, J.E. Wade wrote “in 1838, Warren A. Ferris owned 7 to 9 Toby Scrips, each one calling for 640 acres of Texas land.  In 1850, when Warren had the contract to survey Dallas County, he moved onto the only section of land which was located in Dallas County. The Warren (Ferris) family cemetery has been desecrated, even the skulls taken out and displayed…and nobody doing anything about it. The Ferris heirs will have to show more interest in the cemetery if they expect help.” 

Walter McCausland obtained notes written by 75-year-old Robert Cole, a local resident who lived near the Ferris Cemetery.  Mr. Cole recalled "They (Ferris and wife) gave a small plot of land to the community to be used for a burial ground, here both lie buried- the mother died in 1872.  He died 1874, one small daughter and son by the first wife, Bud, also buried in the cemetery.  The summer of 1890 (I was ten years old at the time), Robert Ferris (son of Warren) and a childhood friend named Wess Chenault, worked to clear the brush and vines from their old family graves and built a fence around their burial lots, as the lots were together.  Eighty years ago, this old cemetery had many nice gravestones and markers, but to date, vandals have destroyed and hauled away all these stones.”  According to Mr. Cole, Robert’s son, Jack Ferris, said he remembered his father describing this event as well. At that time, the Chenault gravestone was still standing, and the Ferris graves were located.  

Mr. Cole also spoke of an old log house located one hundred yards from the old Ferris cemetery.  It is assumed that the house described is the old Ferris homestead. “There is where the James boys, Jesse, Frank, and their gang lived in the winter of 1872-73.  Here is where they buried their gold.  It was taken out the winter of 1889 or 1890.  In the old Ferris home is where Sam Bass and his gang lived while planning the holdup of the Texas and Pacific train at Mesquite, which was to be his last, as was shot and killed a while later at Round Rock.” There are no known photos of Ferris or the original homestead, but Mr. Cole stated that there was “a pencil drawing of the old Ferris home from memory- destroyed about 1903 – Forrest Hills - Bonnieview and St. Francis.” This record is held at the Hall of State Library in Dallas, Texas.

Mr. Cole was concerned that neglect, vandalism, and urban sprawl threatened the total loss of the cemetery as only ½ acre remained. He and some Ferris ancestors were unsuccessful in their attempt to have governing authorities preserve the cemetery and have a historic marker erected.  The Dallas Times Herald interviewed Mr. Cole and published an article in June 1956 describing the threats to the cemetery and the possibility that it would eventually be “swallowed up” by construction.

1956 Dallas Times Herald article about Warren Ferris Cemetery

Fortunately for the Forest Hills neighborhood and for the descendants of those buried in the cemetery, there’s been great progress made in preserving what remains of the Ferris cemetery.  In 1988, the Texas Historical Commission erected a historical marker (#6912) on St. Francis Avenue in honor of the cemetery. As mentioned before, this marker was championed by Suzanne Starling. In 2018, a neighbor of the cemetery, Julie Ann Fineman, founded the non-profit group “Friends of the Warren Ferris Cemetery” with the goal of restoring the cemetery landscape and honoring those buried there.  The organization recruits neighbors, volunteers, and descendants to support the restoration.  Their efforts are priceless to the community, the city, the environment, and to the Ferris descendants. 

The Ferris-Lovejoy documents are available for public viewing but must be done in person. The process of requesting an appointment is done on-line through the L. Tom Perry Special Collection Department website. Collection: Ferris and Lovejoy family papers | BYU Library - Special Collections.  The original diary of Ferris’ wanderings from 1830–1835 entitled “Life in the Rocky Mountains” was apparently destroyed in a fire, but the stories were preserved through print in the Western Literary Messenger of Buffalo N.Y. during his lifetime. The entire diary may be read on-line at this website: Introduction to Life in the Rocky Mountains, by W. A. Ferris (mtmen.org)

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections.  Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

Written by Christine Cohen.

Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Dean Keller - Been Around a Long, Long Time

We are thrilled to have new information on one of the persons known to be buried in the Ferris Cemetery. The SMU archaeological study in 1986 indicated over 100 persons buried there, but we have only thirty or so names, and little is known about most of them. Now long-time Forest Hills residents Jacquelyn Keller and her brother Jack Keller, Jr. have given us interesting information on their ancestor Frederick M. Dean who is buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery.

Frederick Dean (1810-1867) came to Texas toward the end of the Civil War, taking up land in Southeast Dallas County near William Beeman, not far from present Forest Hills. He met his wife, Elizabeth Brakebill Dean (1814-1884), while living in Monroe County, TN near Knoxville.  Faced with a court case involving the burning of his brother-in-law’s barn, Fred moved west to Nashville and then Memphis. Elizabeth, who was over 40 years old, had two children along the way, Mary Ann “Mollie” and Tennessee “Tennie”. Two adult Dean offspring stayed in Tennessee; five Dean children moved to Texas with their parents. Fred died shortly after coming to Dallas  County and was buried in nearby Ferris Cemetery. His widow Elizabeth lived another seventeen years and was buried in Cox Cemetery, west of White Rock Creek. Her daughter “Mollie” married Marc Patton, a farmer of Old Duck Creek (Garland); daughter “Tennie" married W.M. “Bud” McCommas, son of preacher Amos McCommas of East Dallas.

When Mary Ann “Mollie” Dean (1856-1928) married Marcus Perry “Marc” Patton (1854-1928) she was 23 and had a 4-year-old daughter, Willie Elizabeth “Lizzy” who was adopted by Marc Patton. The Pattons had eight more children. They were a prominent family in early Garland. Marc, Mollie, and their children are buried in Garland’s Pioneer Cemetery.

Willie Elizabeth “Lizzy” Patton (1875-1951) married well. Zachary Lee “Bob” Simmons (1865 - 1928), a successful South Dallas farmer, was ten years  older than Lizzy. On his farm near Lisbon, Bob grew cotton, grazed cows, and sold milk to a nearby dairy. He was thrifty and prospered. Lizzie died in the home which Bob purchased in University Park. Their oldest daughter, Lottie Faye Simmons (1894-1979), was born in Lisbon, TX. Lizzie enjoyed a long, interesting life. She is the grandmother of Jacquelyn and Jack Keller, Jr. Lottie married Ridgell Keller (1886-1985) who came from a family of lawmen in Kaufman County, TX.

The Keller family was well-known in Dallas. In the late 1800’s, Ridgell’s father Jacob “Jake” Keller owned the popular Coney Island Turf Club in downtown Dallas. Located in a two-story building on Main St., this saloon/pool hall/gambling parlor/restaurant was noted for its huge Kansas City sirloin steaks. Ridgell Keller was an entrepreneur whose business interests included an athletic club, a garage, and the Mexican Village restaurant on East Grand Avenue. It was Ridgell who first bought property in Forest Hills. He purchased land at Forest Hills Blvd. and San Rafael Dr. and built a house in the early 1930’s. Lottie died while residing at what became the Keller family compound on Garland Rd. at Lakeland Dr..

One of the sons of Lottie and Ridgell Keller was Ridgell Jackson “Jack” Keller (1928 - 2016).  Jack Keller bore the family name Ridgell and the name of a family friend, Dr. Rueben Jackson,  owner of the original Pig Stand restaurant. Jack Keller grew up knowing folks influential in the Dallas restaurant scene. He was a gambler from the age of 12, always figuring the odds in his quick mind and daring the bet. During World War II, Jack was in the Merchant Marines where he would bet on anything and usually won. He traveled Asia, Africa, and Europe, absorbing the culture of distant lands and collecting many interesting pieces of art. On his return to Dallas, in 1951, Jack Keller married Wilma Springer who was his wife and partner for 65 years.

Jack Keller in Merchant Marines - 1940’s

Jack Keller’s restaurant chain was born in 1950. The first Keller drive-in was on Samuells Blvd. across from Tenison Park. It was extremely successful -  selling no-frills hamburgers and beer (as well as package beer) - since it was the last (or first) place to buy beer between Dallas and Shreveport. Jack and Wilma worked as a team to locate and purchase property for business expansion, establishing two additional drive-ins on Northwest Highway and Harry Hines Blvd. Keller’s signature cheeseburger on a poppyseed bun, with onion rings and a cold beer - all for under $3 - was a Dallas hit!

Jack and Wilma Keller - A Team!

Historically, early drive-ins restaurants hired male servers who came to be called “carhops” for their exuberant behavior; they eagerly ran out to the still moving car, jumped on the running board before the vehicle parked, installed the tray on the window, and took the order. During WWII, young women took over most of the jobs as carhops.

Keller’s, friendly female carhops served the customers as they sat in their cars. Each had carefully folded dollar bills between their fingers for making change. On a Saturday night in the summer, the NW Hwy. drive-in was packed with regular customers, families, and their dogs. Classic car clubs (sometimes as many as 200 cars) met in the back while bikers on flashy motorcycles gathered on the side. Jack was a hard worker who often sat in his car out on the lot to see how things were going. Consistency, quality, and a low price were the secret of his success, he often said - but, admittedly the beer license didn’t hurt. Wilma and their four children, Sharon, Jacquelyn, Jon, and Jack Jr. all worked in the family business. In 2013, shortly before Jack’s death in 2016, Keller’s was named #29 among Dallas’s 50 best restaurants. Oprah Winfrey called the Keller burger one of the nation’s best.

Jack had many friends - from pals of his youth to celebrities. He was a good listener, extremely social and genial, who took time to be a mentor for young people just starting in business. He was known as a “high roller” in Las Vegas where he introduced the halftime bet on football games. He knew Dallas and Vegas figures like Benny Binion, Herbert Noble, Joe Campesi, and hotel owner Steve Wynn. 

Photo - Jack knew many celebrities - Jack with Jimmy Buffet under Keller’s sign (don’t have)

The Keller family has deep roots in the Forest Hills neighborhood. Their ancestor Fredrick Dean and his family settled near White Rock Creek on their arrival in Dallas County.  Starting with Ridgell Keller’s purchase in the early 1930’s, the Kellers have gravitated to Forest Hills. In the 1960’s, Jack Keller purchased four houses and a vacant lot on Garland Rd. across from the DeGolyer estate, now the Dallas Arboretum. Some of the Keller family still live on that property. Jack started the Forest Hills Neighborhood Fourth of July parties which were held annually on the Keller property for 35 years before COVID struck. Many adults who attended the events remembered coming as children. The Kellers are so appreciated by folks in Forest Hills that the Homeowners Association named the circle at the intersection of Breezewood Dr. and Forest Hills Blvd. - Keller Circle!

Photo - Jack and Wilma at 4th of July party (don’t have)

Our informants, Jacquelyn Keller and Jack Keller Jr., now run the three Keller drive-in restaurants; on Northwest Hwy., on Harry Hines Blvd., and on Garland Rd. They vow that the secret burger recipe will not change, but they have introduced some new technology for delivering the burgers. Today the carhops carry iPads and you can pay with a credit card.

Photo - Jacquelyn Keller and her brother Jack Keller, Jr.(don’t have)

Jacquelyn and Jack, Jr. both live in Forest Hills. Their mother, Wilma lives in the Keller compound as do other family members. Now, a fifth generation of Kellers, Jacquelyn’s children, William and Juliette, live with Jacquelyn in her Forest Hills home and work in the business when they are not in school. The sign at the Northwest Hwy. Keller’s saying, “Been around a long time” might well be applied to the Kellers’ long association with the Forest Hills neighborhood.

By Susanne Starling, based on interviews with Jacquelyn Keller and Jack Keller, Jr. in May, 2022.

The Mystery of Marie Hennessee

When volunteers begin to clear invasive privet bushes from the Ferris Cemetery in 2019, several workers, including James Jordan and Doug Gilpin, noted a small tombstone hidden in the brush. It read “Marie Hennessee - July 19, 1936”. It had always been thought that R.T. Taylor’s burial in 1906 was the last. Who was this Marie Hennessee and why was there only one date on her stone?

Rumor had it that vandals stole Marie’s stone from the Cox Cemetery, west of White Rock Lake; but investigation showed there were no Hennessees buried in the Cox Cemetery. Recent research by Marilyn Kosanke identifies Marie’s parents to be George Thomas Hennessee, Jr. and Marie Shrum who married Sept. 30, 1934. George’s mailing address was “Rhenhart” Service Station, a reference to Reinhardt, TX near the Ferris Cemetery. The Federal Census of 1940 shows the Hennessees living in Potter County, TX, but also states that they were living in Dallas in 1935.

Generally, according to our researcher, when only one date is given on a gravestone, it indicates an infant who died at birth; often no death certificate was issued. Mary Shrum Hennessee probably had a stillborn or premature baby who was both born and died on July 19, 1936.

Marie Shrum’s uncle Robert E. Shrum was buried in the Cox Cemetery in 1909 and her grandmother Laura Jane Trout Shrum was buried there in 1933. It would be likely that Marie would inter her deceased baby near her relatives in the Cox Cemetery.

Thus, we conclude, based on current evidence, that Marie Hennessee’s gravestone belongs near the Shrum graves at the Cox Cemetery.

Written by Susanne Starling, June 2022, based on research by Marilyn Kosanke.

Ferris Family Reunion In Planning

The Oklahoma Ferrises, descendants of James Monroe Ferris who moved his family to Greer County in the 1880’s, have long gathered for reunions in Oklahoma. Now, Greg Smith and others in the Ferris/Pounds branch of the family are planning a Thanksgiving 2022 gathering at Fort Belknap, Texas. They have also initiated a site on Facebook where they are displaying old photos and family stories. It is called “Descendants of Ferris/Burleson/Pounds Families”. This Facebook site joins an older one called “James Monroe Ferris and Martha Jane Stanford Family Group.” Both Facebook groups are aware of Friends of the Warren Ferris Cemetery.

Oklahoma Ferrises have long had family reunions. Several daughters of Warren Ferris’s eldest son James Monroe Ferris married and moved to West Texas. Lucy Mae, daughter of Allie Ferris Pounds, married James “Pete”Smith. They lived in Newcastle, Texas in Young County near Fort Belknap. During WWII, Lucy Mae and Pete moved to the Dallas area where they found work in the aviation plants building war planes. Lucy Mae Pounds Smith organized a reunion in 1962 in Texas. It was held at the Dallas Public Library where information about Warren Angus Ferris, the Dallas surveyor, was showcased. Lucy Mae is third and Pete second from right in this 1940’s photo.

Joe Ferris

This blog is about the life and times of Joe Ferris.  My name is Lonnie Ferris. Joe was my father. I will preface what I am about to write. While it will contain my knowledge and understanding of Joe Ferris’s life, it can, in no way, be construed as completely factual. My father, Joe, like his older sister Thelma, had a habit of embellishing stories.

Joe Ferris was born in Truscott, Texas. Joe had two siblings. An older sister Thelma and a younger sister, Eddie Mae.

Their parents were Tom Allen Ferris, July 31, 1888 to October 10, 1933 and Effie Batey, March 1893 - October 15, 1938. Joe’s grandfather was Henry Ferris and his great grand father was Warren Angus Ferris. I believe Joe was born on July 26, 1920. 

Joe and his family moved from Truscott to Muleshoe, Texas when Joe was about 5 years old. His father Tom, bought a half section (320 acres) of land approximately 4 miles north of Muleshoe to farm. Joe’s memories of growing up in Muleshoe were not good ones. His father died when Joe was 13 years old.  He remembers his mother as being a mean woman. Anytime the kids would do anything wrong, their mother would beat them and lock them in the root cellar. His mother died when he was 17.  The land was divided up with Thelma taking the eastern 1/3, Joe taking the middle 1/3 and Eddie Mae taking the western 1/3. His sister, Thelma married Tom Boles and moved away. Eddie Mae married Clarence Weeks and they farmed Eddie Mae’s property for many years. When Joe was in fifties, he was finally able to buy both sister’s land.

Joe’s father wasn’t much of a father so Joe had very little parental guidance.  I learned a little about Joe’s youth from our barber in Muleshoe, who cut Joe’s hair as well as mine. Our barber remembers on Halloween Joe and his friends would take small kids and put them into railroad boxcars at the railway station close to main street. They would also gather up outhouses and drag them onto main street. Joe graduated High School after 11 grades because there was no 12th grade at the time. He remembers being very poor.   Joe had to borrow a suit to attend graduation and he remembered constantly wearing second hand clothes and old shoes that were too small for his feet.                               

I would like to interject here that Joe Ferris was not the name he was born with. I knew his legal name was L.H. Ferris. It was not until I was 10 years old that my father was willing to tell me what the L.H. stood for. Joe’s birth name was Liege Homer Ferris. I understand why my father went by Joe.  I would have gone by a different name too.  Turns out that Liege (Lige) is a family name from his mother’s family.

When Joe was about 17 years old, he and Eddie Mae were staying with one of their uncles and his wife.  Joe came home to find the uncle trying to sexually molest Eddie Mae.  Joe proceeded to beat up the uncle within an inch of his life. The police were called and Joe was arrested. It was his uncle’s word against his. The Judge gave Joe a choice to either join the army or go to prison. Joe choose the Army.

I did not know this full story until after my father had died. Joe always told me he could join the army at 18, if he passed his physical. The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, was told to me by Thelma’s daughter Noel (Tootsie). Joe told me he lied about his age to join the army. Army papers show him as 21, but it is possible he was actually younger.

Joe Ferris

The army in many ways, good and bad, molded the man my father became. As an enlisted man, he was sent to OCS (Officer Candidate School) on three different occasions. The Army must have seen something in the man. However, due to multiple rule infractions, including AWOL, he never completed the training.  He did attain the rank of Master Sergeant as an enlisted man. Joe also became an alcoholic and enjoyed gambling. Both of which would play a part during his stint in the army.

Boxing Joe

 Joe like to fight in the ring while in the army. I always assumed that was a carry over from his unguided youth.

Joe said he was a pretty good boxer, winning a majority of his fights. Joe told me about one particular fight where he stepped into the ring and proceeded to get beat up six ways to Sunday. Said he never stood a chance during the fight.  It was not until after the fight, he learned his opponent was a Golden Gloves Boxing Champion.

Joe was a small statured man, 5’-6”, 125 pounds. Because of his size, that made him ideal for army tanks, the M1 Sherman tank.

Joe was part of the 3rd Armor Division under General Patton. He saw action in the Battle of Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, and in many countries including France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Austria and North Africa.

Joe said his tank crew found a cave where the Germans were storing their stolen treasures. It was full of paintings, statues and many other crates.  Five crates of five-star Hennessy cognac definitely drew Joe’s attention. They took the crates back to the tank and then proceeded to toss the tank’s artillery shells out.  It seems the racks designed to hold the artillery shells were the prefect shape and size to hold the cognac bottles. Joe said they had the best three day drunk afterwards.

Sherman tanks contained a “trap door” on the bottom of the tank, that could be used to exit the tank if necessary. Joe said that, while not condoned, they frequently left this door open on the bottom of the tank. It apparently made it much easier to relieve oneself without exiting the tank. At some point in the war, Joe’s tank got blown up. He received shrapnel in both his shoulder and his knee.  The shrapnel was removed from his shoulder, but not his knee. Later in life this resulted in Joe being stopped after passing through any airport metal detector. Both injuries continued to bother him for life.

While recovering in an army hospital ward, General Patton came by.  He announced he was looking for volunteers to be a motorcycle scout. As General Patton looked around the room full of recovering soldiers, Joe raised his hand to volunteer. (Thanks to Christine Cohen for this  story).

 A motorcycle scout in the Army could not ride for longer than 6 months for risk of kidney damage. Riders were required to wear kidney belts.  Motorcycles had a 45 cubic inch engine and were made by Harley Davidson.  They were called “hard tail” motorcycles because they had no rear suspension. The seat sat on small springs and the front wheel had minimum suspension travel.  All this resulted in a very rough ride for traversing across open terrain and rutted dirt roads.

 General Patton was Joe’s hero and the man he looked up to and admired. Joe’s gravestone states he was a sergeant under General Patton. Joe met General Patton on at least one other occasion. At a port, Joe’s company captured several drums of German torpedo juice. Torpedo juice was 180 proof methyl alcohol that was used as fuel for both Ally and German torpedoes.  Ethyl alcohol is fine for human consumption, methyl alcohol can make you go blind. Ally torpedo juice contained an additive to make it unsuitable for human consumption.  German torpedo juice had no such additive.  Joe and his buddies concocted a drink called the “Green Lizard”, it was a combination of Vitalis (the hair oil) to give it that green sheen, torpedo juice and some other ingredient to cut some of the alcohol’s bite.  General Patton was said to have tried it and said it had a kick.

Joe was part of a group that liberated a small concentration camp. He listed the concentration camp as Camp Durcus, but I could find no mentioned of it on the web. He smuggled photographs back home with him of what he saw, but I will not post the disturbing pictures. The two pictures I did include are below.

These are captured German prisoners being transported.

This picture below shows Joe talking with a concentration camp prisoner. The prisoner asked Joe for his bayonet, which he gave him. The prisoner took it and cut the throat of an SS trooper.

 he term “war is hell” is probably very apt. Though for soldiers, there were breaks in the conflict.

This picture above is of Joe on a hotel balcony during some “R & R” in Monte Carlo. I still have some of the casino chips he brought home.

Joe said traveling to and from the US by ship was not enjoyable but it was profitable. Joe ended up his army career with two Purple Hearts and one Bronze Star for bravery.

 Joe was a gambler. His two favorite games were poker and craps (throwing dice). He said he got off of the ship with $30,000 in winnings. You be the judge of what the real amount was. Joe returned to Muleshoe, Texas and used the winnings to pay the back taxes on his land and had enough left to start farming. Joe never told me that he used any  of his G.I. Bill or veteran benefits.

It was during this time that he met his wife and my mother, Verna Mae Owens.  It was at a dance hall in Midway, New Mexico. Midway, aptly named, was halfway between Portales, New Mexico and Clovis, New Mexico. Clovis was only 30 miles from Muleshoe and had one desirable trait. The Clovis area was wet (had alcohol) where Muleshoe was dry.

Verna Mae Owens, wife of Joe Ferris

Verna was born in Portales and was only 16 years old at the time she met Joe. Joe was 26. She came from a very poor family who used to be migrant workers picking fruit in California. Verna quit High School in her junior year to marry Joe.

Joe and Verna got married on Thanksgiving Day, 1947.

They lived in various rental houses in the Muleshoe area for the first few years. A sad situation occurred during this time.  Joe and Verna took a trip and let some friends stay at their rented home while they were gone. When Joe and Verna returned home from their trip, they discovered their friends dead at the house. They had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Joe’s home in Muleshoe

 Around 1951, Joe purchased a small spec. prefabbed house outside of Lubbock, Texas, about 70 miles away. He had the house transported and set on the farm.

 Joe lived in this house until the day he died although the house did undergo some changes over the years. In about 1966, they expanded the house to 2 ½ times its original size with a 4 car drive through carport.

In 1952, they had a son, Leland Ferris. From the time of Joe’s return from the war, through his marriage until now, Joe drank and frequently got drunk. When Verna got pregnant with her second child in late 1953, she gave Joe an ultimatum. Either quit drinking or she and Leland were leaving.

 Joe stopped drinking in 1954, the year their second son, Lonnie Ferris, was born. Joe started going to Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meetings and Verna, with the boys, went to Al-Anon meetings. Joe never had another drink, though he said there was never a day he did not want one. He always had a bottle of whiskey at the house.

 Joe was very sociable and loved to talk and tell stories. There were days I thought if he had no one to talk to, he would gladly strike up a conversation with a fence post. Joe had a quick temper, though you often did not see it. His temper showed mostly during Leland’s teenage years.  Seems like Joe and Leland were like oil and water and could not see eye to eye. I remember a variety of sayings my father liked, “I wish it would rain butt deep on a tall Indian” or “he was madder than a shot bobcat with a toothache” or “if the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck, I would swim to the bottom and never come up”.

Joe told me one time, “I think I like farming because it is one of the riskiest professions I know. You start by hoping you plant the right crop. If you are lucky enough to get rain at the right times during the year, you might grow a good crop. But you can have a good crop and it can be hailed flat in a heart beat. If you are lucky enough to get the rain and miss the hail, then you just hope that the insects will not eat it up. You have to hope, when you harvest the crop, the prices will be high enough to pay the bills and maybe make a little money. You finish the year, turn around and start the process all over.”

Once back from the Army, Joe spent his whole life farming. Joe farmed not only his inherited land but two additional rental properties totaling approximately 1000 acres. All the land was irrigated. He grew primarily corn and cotton. But depending on the market and prices, he also grew maise, soybeans, castor beans, wheat, sunflowers, and hay.

I, Lonnie Ferris, ended up becoming a Mechanical engineer and I will say that Joe was the smartest mechanically inclined individual, I knew, without a formal education. He would frequently build self tilting trailers, mechanical animal traps, changes to farm implements, etc. He even built a hydraulic lift system that hooked to the back of a tractor. It would raise him in a steel cage so he could paint the sides and eves of the house without a ladder. Electricity, though, was not his forte. Joe would say, “If it has more than one wire, I get confused.”

Joe died on December 18, 2006. We believe he was 86 years old, but are not completely sure. Joe never had a birth certificate. Said he lied about his age to get into the army. Army records list him as joining at 21, but he may have been as young as 18.  When Joe was in his late sixties, he went to the social security office and said he started drawing social security a couple of years sooner than he should have. After verifying the army records showing him as 21 when he joined, the social security office said they were not going to change his age and just enjoy the extra benefits.

Left to right – Leland Ferris, Lonnie Ferris and Joe Ferris.

Joe was by no means perfect, but he is still loved and missed.

 
Written by Lonnie Ferris of Grand Prairie, TX in June, 2022.

Who was Robert T. Taylor?

Taylor was probably born in Talbot County, Georgia in 1842 into slavery. It is in Talbot County that the Federal Census of 1870 found him. Robert is listed as an illiterate mulatto farm laborer (age 28), living with his wife Savannah A. Giddings (age 22) near O’Neal’s Mill. They married in 1866 and their four sons were born in Georgia between 1867 and 1872. Sometime after 1872, Robert Taylor moved his family to Texas. The 1880 Federal Census shows the Taylor family living in the White Rock Creek area of Dallas County. Four sons are listed: Polk, age 13; Robert, age 12: Gustus, age 10, and the  youngest, Walter, age 8. All of the boys worked on the farm, but the three oldest also attended school.

Robert T. Taylor was a successful black farmer in Dallas County who against the odds of tenancy was able to save money and buy his land.  Most tenants or sharecroppers were subsistence farmers whose continuous debt precluded them from becoming landowners. In 1894, Robert Taylor bought 24 acres of rich White Rock Creek bottom land from Isabella and Franklin Winfrey (Winfrey Point). Interestingly, this was part of C.A. Lovejoy Survey #8, four miles east of the town of Dallas, originally surveyed by W.A. Ferris. R.F. Taylor paid $200 in cash and signed three promissory notes which were paid off by 1900. One of the 24 acres Taylor deeded to the trustees of Griggs Chapel, a Negro church which sat on the corner of his farm. Sam Street’s 1900 map of Dallas County shows R.T. Taylor’s house and two rental houses on Garland Road about where the Camp House is now located at the Dallas Botanical Gardens and Arboretum.

Perhaps because they had experienced the handicap of illiteracy, Robert and Savannah Taylor were keen on educating their four sons. It is not known what schools they attended in Georgia and Texas, but they must have had excellent teachers who prepared them for professional careers.

Polk K. Taylor (1867- ?), the oldest son, is mentioned in an 1891 Dallas Morning News article as a debater in the Dallas Colored Literary Society. It is not surprising that Polk became a lawyer, practicing law in the Creek Nation of Indian Territory where he married Freddie M. Sims in 1907. Polk moved about restlessly. He was a postal clerk in Muskogee and later a teacher in Oklahoma City. His mother Savannah, in 1909, reported Polk to be divorced and living in Chickasha. In the 1920’s, he was in Tulsa, perhaps witnessing the horror of the white mobs' attack on black businesses and persons in the spring of 1921. The year of Polk K. Taylor’s death and his place of burial are not known.

Second son Robert F. Taylor (1867-1901) finished school, met and married Olivia C. Anderson of Washington County, TX, and became a Baptist minister in Corsicana, TX around 1892. More will follow about Robert F.

An 1896 newspaper item reported: “Augustus Taylor of Dallas has returned from a medical college at Nashville, TN where he has been for 2 years.” A graduate of Meharry College, the only medical school for blacks, Augustus L. “Gustus” Taylor (1869-1941) became a prominent physician/surgeon in Fort Worth, opening his practice in 1907. He married three times - the last and longest marriage was to Allie Bell Cox (1894-1967), a divorcee with a daughter, Catherine M. Moore, who was adopted by Dr. Taylor. They lived in their home at 1132 Humboldt for 40 years. Dr. Taylor died in 1941; both he and his wife are buried in the New Trinity Cemetery in Haltom City, TX.

Walter R. Taylor (1872-1916), the youngest son, became a teacher at Dallas Colored High School on Cochran at Hall Street in Freedman’s Town (now the Uptown area). In 1898, he married Caledonia Dodson who taught at the same school. A Dallas City Directory shows their residence at 469 Juliet St. In 1899, his father sold Walter an acre of the White Rock land for ”$1 and other considerations”, but Walter did not move to the land. In 1909, Walter’s mother reported that Walter lived in El Paso, TX where he was principal of the colored high school. The census of 1910 shows Walter and Caledonia in Washington, D.C. where he was employed as a tabulator for the immigration service. Before Walter moved to California around 1911, he must have gone to law school. He was an attorney in Los Angeles until his death in 1916 (age 43). Walter is buried in the Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA.

 None of the boys came back to Dallas until Robert F. was brought home to be buried in the Ferris Cemetery in 1901. His father, Robert T. Taylor, died five years later in 1906. The elder Taylor’s obituary which appeared in the Fort Worth paper says he was buried at “White Rock”. Probably Savannah buried her husband near her son in the Ferris Cemetery.

 An interesting affidavit was given in person by Savannah Taylor in 1907 at the time she was selling most of the Taylor farm to the City of Dallas for the building of White Rock Lake. She states that Robert T. Taylor left no will but all of his debts were paid in full. Savannah reports the marital status of each of her three living heirs and where they were living. She had no grandchildren.  In 1909, Savannah sold 20+ acres of the White Rock land to the city for $60 dollars an acre. She retained a few acres where her home was located and lived there until her death at age 72 in 1920. Savannah Taylor is buried in McCree Cemetery in Northeast Dallas.

 The story of Savannah and Robert T. Taylor is one of amazing success against the backdrop of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Coming out of slave days in Georgia to own their own farm and home in Dallas, the black couple educated four boys who became professional men - a lawyer, a preacher, a physician, and a teacher.

Who was Robert F. Taylor?

Robert F. Taylor, the second son of R.T. and Savannah Taylor, was born in Georgia and, after the Civil War, moved with his parents and brothers to a farm on White Rock Creek. Little is known of where Robert received his education. He and his brother Walter were active in the BYPU, a Baptist youth organization, where Robert, dubbed “The Fighting Tiger”, honed  his speaking and argumentation skills. Robert F. married Olivia Anderson of Washington County, TX in 1891; he was 21 and she was 18. By 1892, he was a young preacher with his own church, the Second Independent Baptist Church of Corsicana TX. Taylor was the third pastor of this historic church, said to be the second oldest Negro Baptist church in Texas.

Taylor’s church was reorganized  as the First Independent Church of Corsicana - New Building - 1929

In 1892, young R.F. Taylor wrote an impressive letter to the Plaindealer, a Negro newspaper in Detroit. He sent news from the Lone Star State where, he reported, the dominant Democratic Party was divided and the Populist Party rising in popularity. Sadly, the Afro-American vote was also divided. Reminding the reader that 130,000 slaves were freed in the South in ignorance and superstition, Rev. Taylor wrote “we need more educated people”. He noted progress being made; “The leading churches in the South today are being filled with men who keep pace with the times”; but change takes time, he wrote. His thoughtful letter reveals Taylor’s interest in politics as well as religion. Rev. Taylor was active in the Navarro County Republican Party.

Corsicana in the 1890’s experienced rapid economic and social change; a small agricultural community became a boom town after oil was discovered in 1894. Saloons and brothels sprang up. The town was teeming with unruly men. Racial tensions were high. Several incidents of vigilantism and racial violence occurred in Corsicana between 1892 and 1901. Amid this climate of instability, Pastor Robert F. Taylor went about his business with the church; he attended numerous BPYU and Sunday School conventions in Central Texas where he often preached the sermon.

All was going along smoothly until December of 1897 when Taylor went to Corsicana authorities to ask for a restraining order against church member Nathan Mosely who was threatening his life. Why was Mosely threatening Taylor? The implication was that the preacher was having an affair with Mosely’s wife. The church tried to contain the scandal, saying “It is church business” and the church elders would discipline Taylor.

On May 23,1898, white druggist John Shook shot black citizen Nathan Mosely in broad daylight before many witnesses on a downtown street of Corsicana. A Galveston newspaper gave a vivid account of the incident. Shook said the black man sent his wife an insulting letter. He was not charged with the murder.

The June 14, 1898 Dallas Morning News story, reported that Rev. R.F. Taylor and Janie Mosely were arrested and indicted for conspiracy against Janie’s husband Nathan Mosely. Headlined “Echoes of the Mosely Killing”, a July 4th article revealed that a handwriting comparison showed Mosely did not write the letter which led to his murder. A similar letter had been sent to another unidentified woman. At this point the authorities turned their attention to Rev. Taylor, recalling that Taylor had asked for a restraining order on Nathan Mosely. The sheriff suspected Taylor and Janie Mosely had written the letters hoping that one of the two husbands would kill Nathan and end his threats. Druggist Shook obliged.

R.F. Taylor was also charged with misuse of the mails and taken by the Deputy Marshal to federal court in Dallas. After spending a few days in jail, Rev. Taylor was released. His church called for his resignation. We do not think Taylor was convicted of a crime or lost his church. A newspaper article in Oct. 1900 shows him as moderator for a church meeting in Corsicana where 200 people were in attendance;  apparently, R.F. Taylor continued his church duties until his death in 1901 at age 33. The cause of his death is not known. Olivia, his wife, took his body for burial in the Ferris Cemetery in Dallas near where he had grown up. She placed the epitaph,”Gone from our home but not from our hearts” on his impressive gravestone. It seems the young preacher was forgiven his indiscretions. 

By Susanne Starling, June 2022, based on research by Donald Payton, Debra Walker, and Marilyn Kosanke

A Freedman’s Community Near White Rock Creek?

 According to a hand drawn map by W.R. Conger, a portion of the Ferris Cemetery, toward San Leandro and Ash Creek, was the site of several black burials. Some of these black people worked for neighboring farmers like the Tuckers and the Caruths;  others lived in the Reinhardt  community and worked for the Santa Fe railroad. There was a colored school in Reinhardt and Griggs Chapel, a Negro church, sat on Garland Rd. adjacent to R.T. Taylor’s land. 

More Cowboys of New Mexico

Christine Cohen’s paternal grandparents owned a 24 section ranch on the west side of the rugged Cabellos Mountains and the Rio Grande Valley. The Boles ranch stretched from Palomas Gap to the edge of Hot Springs (in 1950 renamed Truth or Consequences), New Mexico. Christine and her four siblings lived in Las Cruces, close enough for weekends and carefree summers at the ranch. She has many fond memories of roaming the property, searching for Indian artifacts and Spanish treasure. The Rio Grande flows through the area and has been home to native Americans for centuries. Arrowheads, beads, pottery, metates and grinding stones are easily found. The kids explored Palomas Gap, a canyon with a wagon road carved by early settlers. It was a paradise for adventurous youngsters.

Boles Ranch

Thelma O’Neal Ferris Boles (1913-1991), Christine’s grandmother, was the granddaughter of Warren A. Ferris’s son Henry. “Fimmer”, as she was called by the children, was a great storyteller who described Ferris’s exploits in the Rocky Mountains as told in his journal. Thelma felt that her ancestor’s journal was the inspiration for the movie “Jeremiah Johnson”. She entertained the young people with stories of her own colorful past.

Thelma Holding First Granddaughter, Therese Marie Boles

Thelma was the oldest child of Tom Allen Ferris and Effie May Baty Ferris. She, her brother Joe, and younger sister Eddie May were raised in Muleshoe, Texas. They had a difficult home life and Thelma, at age fourteen, eagerly accepted the local postal carrier’s proposal of marriage and the chance to leave Muleshoe. Lloyd Thomas Boles (1907-1988) was a good man and the best thing that ever happened to Thelma Ferris. He was steady and hardworking with a deep sense of integrity. They left Texas and homesteaded land near Pie Town in central New Mexico. It was mountainous country with silver mines. Tom, who was a water dowser, found water on his land and sold out to a neighboring rancher who needed the water. Thelma and Tom eventually bought a ranch near Hot Springs from their lifelong friends, Buster and Callie Slater. By then, they had two children, Bobby Kenneth (Christine’s dad) and Noel “Tootsie” Kay.

Tom Boles on Horseback

Homestead near PieTown, New Mexico

Bobby Boles in front of Pie Town Homestead

The ranch near the Rio Grande and the Cabello Mountains was rocky and dry. Raising cattle here was challenging, but there was adequate native grass to graze 500 head of cattle. It was comprised of privately owned land and land leased from Bureau of Land Management. Roundups were difficult as the cattle were scattered over a large area, but the neighbors came to help. It was a community effort. Tom Boles was known as a good neighbor and generous man who stepped up to help those in need. He hunted deer and shared the venison with families in need. The Boles lived off the land, always hunting and gardening, canning food for future hard times. Thelma was an integral part of the ranch life. She worked beside Tom in his ranch responsibilities; she cooked three meals a day, gardened, milked cows, made butter, tended the chickens and pigs, helped brand, fixed fence, and anything else that needed to be done. It was a hard, but satisfying life for Christine’s grandparents, until in their 70s, the ranch became too much and they had to sell. After selling, they bought land on a mesa overlooking the former Boles Ranch. Tom and Thelma built a home on the mesa using two old military dorm buildings purchased from New Mexico State University which they placed around a free-standing fireplace/chimney left from an old settler’s home. On the mesa is a centuries old settlers’ graveyard and abandoned schoolhouse. When the Boles children visited their grandparents, they loved roaming the cemetery, examining stones and artifacts piled around the ancient graves. Thelma and Tom had a magnificent view of the ranch, the Caballo Mountains, Palomas Gap, and the Rio Grande. There they enjoyed retirement and lived out the remainder of their lives.

Abandoned Schoolhouse on the Mesa

Cohen Family on the Mesa - 2015, Left to right: Ethan, Noah, Christine, and Fiona

Thelma claimed to have Native American Indian ancestry. Her beautiful looks were distinctively different from the English-Scotch-Irish appearance of others in the Boles family. Her hair was black and she had a darker complexion. Thelma’s maternal grandmother Alice Baty was a Ray (from Rey or Reyes), descendant of a family who owned a Spanish land grant in southeast Texas. The story told by Thelma was that the Ray family land was taken by the State of Texas; it became part of Angelina National Forest. Thelma’s stories changed over time. Sometimes she claimed to be of Kiowa/Apache ancestry; sometimes she denied Indian heritage. Her attitude toward Indians was conflicted. Thelma served as a mid-wife to natives in the Pie Town area. She was given beautiful woven blankets in gratitude for her help and she treasured them. She was fond of a Navajo couple who came annually to pick pinion nuts in the harvest near PieTown, but she was critical of the husband who earned a college degree only to return to the reservation and the “old ways”. She admired the artistry of the wife’s weaving of Navajo rugs, but deplored her lack of sanitation in not washing her hands when cooking. Thelma was the storyteller in the family, but her stories could vary. The validity of the stories of Indian heritage were a source of family conversation. After Thelma’s death, her daughter Noel had a DNA test performed and found that she was 4% Mongolian, not American Indian.

By Susanne Starling and Christine Cohen - 2022

Based on stories written by Mary Knox Boles, reminiscences and photos from Christine Cohen and Dulce Boles (February and March 2022).

Was Charles Drake Ferris at the Battle of San Jacinto?

Recently we have met (digitally) Anna Christine “Chris” Cohen, a Ferris descendant through the line of Henry Ferris, son of W.A. Ferris. She is the great, great, great granddaughter of Warren Angus Ferris. Christine lives on a horse ranch near College Station. She is retired from a career in the health field; her husband Noah is a professor of veterinary science at Texas A&M. They have two young adult children, Ethan and Fiona. Chris is very well-informed on Ferris family history. She has made three trips to study the Ferris/Lovejoy Papers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. 

Christine Cohen

Christine determined to prove to the Sons of the Republic of Texas that Warren Ferris’s younger brother, Charles Drake Ferris, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. Charles Ferris’s name does not appear on the official veterans list of that decisive battle and he did not receive donation land due to those veterans. Christine knew the SRT had rejected Charles, but she decided to write to them in hopes that they would be persuaded to add his name to the list.

Circumstantial evidence presented by Christine included family letters, published contemporary accounts, evidence from the historical record, and Charles Ferris’s own writings which carried the convincing flavor of an eye-witness to events at San Jacinto.

Charles D. Ferris and a Buffalo, NY friend Horace Chamberlain arrived in Texas as volunteers in early 1836. After the fall of the Alamo, the historic record shows that Ferris served as a “spy” for Mosley Baker, reporting on Mexican troop movements and later aide-de-camp to Lt. Governor James Robinson. Ferris delivered an urgent dispatch from James Fannin at Goliad to Robinson during the days that the Texian army fell back before the Mexican invasion. Charles Ferris was among those critical of Sam Houston’s inglorious retreat, dubbed the “Runaway Scrape”.

The Ferris family in Buffalo was convinced that Charles participated in the Battle of San Jacinto. His sister Sarah Lovejoy wrote in June 1836, “The last letter we had from Charles was dated the 22nd of April, the day after the battle of San Jacinto and Santa Ana’s capture. He was then well-delighted with the country and in good spirits - he thought the next movement would be to San Antonio to endeavor to retake it”. She also noted that Horace Chamberlain was with Charles at San Jacinto on April 23, a few days after the battle.

Horace Chamberlain’s June 15,1836 letter to his father was published in the Daily Advertiser in Buffalo, NY: “Charles D Ferris, formerly of Buffalo, is here, and belongs to the army - he is aide to Gov. Robinson. He was in the engagement, and narrowly escaped death…Three days after the battle, I visited the field, which was literally covered for ten miles with the dead…” In his letter, Chamberlain describes Charles’s hand-to-hand combat with a Mexican soldier. Having been thrown from his horse, dodging bullets and bayonet, Ferris killed the foe with his rifle butt.

Following the battle, in May 1836, Charles Ferris was commending by Lt. Gov. Robinson in a letter of introduction to Gen. Thomas J. Rusk as a “young man of classical education and morals, habits, and tried valor.”. This a month after San Jacinto.

On his return to Buffalo in the fall of 1836, Charles published in the Western Literary Messenger a tribute to Juan Almonte’s conduct at the Battle of San Jacinto. Almonte, Santa Anna’s aide-de-camp, acted with cool courage according to Ferris. As the battle turned into a massacre and Santa Anna fled the field,  Almonte raised a white flag of surrender, calming the angry Texans, and saving many lives. Charles Ferris’s moving descriptions of the horrors of the furious battle and the admirable behavior of Almonte have the earmark of an eye-witness account.

Charles D. Ferris’s name did not appear on Sam Houston’s list of men at San Jacinto or subsequent lists in 1875 and 1883. Although he did not receive donation land due to veterans of San Jacinto, the family of Charles Ferris was awarded a 960 acre land grant for his service in the Texas Army. Louis W. Kemp investigated omission of names of deserving men in 1906; some names were added but not that of Ferris. Kemp admitted that the list was probably incomplete. Omissions were possibly due to loss of documents. Some of the archives of Texas were lost during moves from Columbia to Washington-on-the-Brazos, from  Harrisburg to Austin. In 1845, the Treasury Office burned and muster rolls were lost.

The Sons of the Republic of Texas did not respond to Christine Cohen’s argument. Still she believes that that the evidence proves that Charles Ferris did participate in the battle that decided Texas independence. What do you think?

Fannin or The Massacre of La Bahia

A Poem by Charles Drake Ferris

What means that dark cloud, overhanging the vale;

And those soft mournful sounds that I hear in the gale!

Tell me why the rejoicings of liberty cease,

And those sobs of regret break the stillness of peace?

Oh say! What can thus like a funeral pall

Wreathe sorrow and stillness alike over all!

’Tis Nature and Texas commingling their grief

For the loss of a gallant and favorite Chief.

Jehovah himself, from his throne in the sky,

And the hosts of bright seraphs and angels on high,

From those scenes of delight in the regions above,

Sympathise in our grief for the hero we love.

They heard the wild shouts that arose from the plain

Where the heroes of Georgia with Fannin were slain;

And their blood gushing torrents of death and despair,

Rose aloft to the Lord on the pinions of air. 

Hushed at once were the sounds of devotion and praise,

For the highest archangel was struck with amaze;

As those currents of crimson arose from below,

Supplicating to God for revenge on the foe.

Soft and sweet was the halo of grief that o’ersspread

The fair shadowy forms of the time-honored dead,

And melting indeed was the holy appeal

As they held up their hands, and their wounds did reveal.

From hell’s dark abyss, the black caverns of night

At that moment arose the shrill sound of delight,

Triumphant, terrifick, that terrible yell

From the turrets of Heaven, was reechoed in Hell.

Sublime was the wrath that o’reshadowed His brow

As the echoing thunder repeated his vow.

That the fruits of a vengeance as deadly and deep

As our foes had deserved, they bitterly reap.

Brave Texians! To you the direction was given

To redress your own wrongs, and redress those of Heaven;

To the Plains of Jacinto ye gallantly moved,

Where the vengeance of God was performed and approved.

Like his brother Warren Ferris, Charles D. Ferris tried his hand at writing poetry. This moving poem was never published. It was rejected by the publisher as too emotional. They also objected to the idea that God approved the Texians’ actions of revenge for the Alamo and Goliad taken at San Jacinto.

Written by Susanne Starling from material provided by Christine Cohen.

Susanne Starling, Where It All Started With The Ferris Cemetery

Many of you will recall the story I told in the preface of Land Is the Cry! about the young man in my history class at Eastfield College (Dallas College) who asserted that his ancestor surveyed Dallas County. Greg Smith, grandson of Lucy Pounds Smith, followed up by bringing a folder of letters and clippings collected by his grandmother. A love letter written by Warren A. Ferris to his first wife Melinda from a cold surveyors’ camp in the bottoms of the East Fork of the Trinity River in 1841 especially caught my eye.

Next, I visited with Greg’s parents. His father, Leland Smith, loaned me a copy of Ferris’s Life In the Rocky Mountains which described his adventures as a fur trapper for the American Fur Company. The preface of that book revealed to me that there were many more letters exchanged between Warren Ferris and his family in Buffalo, NY. Descendants of Ferris had saved the letters. Recognizing their significance, the family put them in the hands of historians and institutions were they would be preserved.

Unpublished original letters are a goldmine to the historian. In 1985, I retired from teaching and began the search for the Ferris letters. The trail that led me to Austin, TX, Buffalo, NY, and Provo, UT was an interesting journey. Through their unpublished manuscripts I met stamp collector Walter McCasland and Southwestern historian Homer DeGolyer. Both had been fascinated by the Ferris story, collected materials, and begun writing in the 1940’s. McCasland’s unpublished manuscript gave important information on Ferris’s family and his early years on the Niagara frontier. DeGolyer provided valuable insights on the Republic of Texas, the little village of Dallas at the Three Forks of the Trinity, and Indian conflicts with militia rangers. Publication of Land Is the Cry! in 1998 changed my life. The professional surveyors of Texas, who helped me understand pioneer surveying techniques, welcomed me to their state conventions where I was twice the keynote speaker. Frances James, the “Cemetery Lady” of Dallas County became my mentor. I worked with Frances to get a Texas Historic Marker for the Ferris Cemetery and also a medallion declaring the cemetery a Texas Historic Cemetery. Most recently, I have been involved with the Friends of the Warren Ferris Cemetery. My role has been locating descendants of those buried in the cemetery and writing brief profiles on their families Greg Smith went into education and became the principal of Caldwell Elementary School in Garland. These two photos were published in the Garland newspaper on the occasion of my visiting Greg’s school and speaking to a class on the subject of Texas surveying. I led the youngsters through roleplaying a frontier surveying party. They portrayed the surveyor, the line man, chain bearers, cook, and guards. Greg went on to become principal of an elementary school in University Park. We stayed in touch sporadically.

Greg Smith and his wife live in Greenville, SC now. He is out of the education business. They own an athletics supply store. His father Leland lives in a retirement residence in Greenville, TX.

Written by Susanne Starling, 2021.

Our Veteran of the War of 1812, Benjamin Dye

Ferris Cemetery is a cemetery without original gravestones. However, there is one interesting marker shaped like a gravestone. It is an authentic War of 1812 marker used by the Veterans Administration as a gravestone and dedicated to Benjamin Dye, a veteran of the War of 1812. Dye is buried somewhere in the Ferris Cemetery, though the exact location of his grave is unknown.

Historic marker honoring Benjamin Dye

The marker was dedicated in a colorful ceremony on January 24, 2015. Craig Austin Rowley Chapter, General Society of the War of 1812, sponsored installation of the marker. Paul Ridenour was Master of Ceremonies. The Color Guard was dressed in costumes of the 1812 era and came with their muskets, prepared to fire a celebratory salvo. A little drama occurred when a neighbor threatened to call the police. The re-enactors settled for three hardy “huzzahs”for Benjamin Dye.

Color Guard in 1812 costume

Crowd and Dye family descendants

A sizable crowd of dignitaries and several descendants of Benjamin Dye was present, including Lisa Dye Bentley, sister Cynthia Dye Lennox, and Lisa’s sons Hunter and Brayden. Lisa and Cynthia are descendants of George Washington Dye, Benjamin’s son. M.C. Toyer and his mother Lois Beeman Toyer, sister Cynthia Toyer Fusco, M.C.’s cousins Cathy Albritton Chaney and Elizabeth Beeman Allbritton were also present; they are descendants of Martha Dye Beeman.

Dye Family Descendants - Left to right: Lisa Dye Bentley, Cyndie Dye Lennox, Hunter and Brayden Bentle

Benjamin Dye (1793-1852) was born in Virginia where, after serving as a private in the militia, he married Sarah “Sally” Cazier (1798-1879) in 1816. Ben was 22.; Sally 13. From Virginia we can trace the migrations of the Dyes to Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Texas. The couple moved to Oldham County, KY in the 1830’s. With them were their sixteen children, including their oldest daughter Jane who married Daniel Sage while they were still in Virginia.

Farmers Benjamin Dye and his son-in-law Daniel Sage sold their produce and livestock in nearby Louisville, KY. Ben prospered and was elected sheriff of Oldham County. When the Dye/Sage families moved to Texas in the late 1840’s, some of Dye’s adult children stayed behind in Kentucky. The Dyes first appear in the Dallas County census of 1850 where Ben is listed as a farmer, with a wife and 9 children. His younger, unmarried brother William also lived in the household. Benjamin Dye received a 640 acre land grant from the Peters Company which he located near Duck Creek (present Garland, Texas). Due to a lost certificate, the land was not patented until 1853 after his death.

Map showing Dye family headrights

In addition to marital ties to the Sage family, the Dyes also allied with the John Beeman family when Martha Dye married Beeman’s oldest son William H. Beeman. Another Dye daughter, Cora, married John C. McCoy, respected Dallas lawyer. Son Enoch married Elvira Keen, daughter of Rev. Abner Keen. Benjamin died in 1852 at age 59, having lived only 5 years in Texas. His widow Sally inherited the land and lived into her 80’s. Both she and her husband are buried in the Ferris Cemetery.

Ruth Cooper, a Dye/Beeman descendant, wrote in 1961 to Dye descendant Betsy Elizabeth Ross of Albany, Tx. of the old cemetery near White Rock Creek: I started out to find it and when I did, I was heartsick. It has been so desecrated that nothing remains. Vandals have desecrated, broken, stolen, and carried off all but a couple of stones. The place is overgrown with briars until it is impossible to get through… A number of years ago a road (St. Francis) was put through the cemetery which started the desecration…in all the notices… in the newspaper - not one time was the name of the cemetery mentioned. It was just “old cemetery.”

Paul Ridenour at Podium - Photo by Tom Whitelock

Ruth Cooper heard stories of train trips to visit cousin Addie Dye McDermett who lived in Reinhardt just north of the Ferris Cemetery. Transportation was so difficult by road that Ruth’s grandmother Sonoma Beeman Myers preferred taking the train from Dallas to Reinhardt. Today Reinhardt is part of Dallas, swallowed by development of Casa Linda and Casa View. Ruth, as a child, was fascinated by stories of pioneer days told by her Dye/Beeman relatives. Addie Dye McDermett, youngest daughter of Benjamin Dye, gave a detailed memoir of early Dallas life to W.S. Adair of the Dallas Morning News in 1925. (See attached newspaper article. Zoom in to read).

Written by Susanne Starling with information furnished by Paul Ridenour, Lisa Dye Bentley, M.C. Toyer, and Johna Armisteads. Photos by Ben Sandifer and Paul Ridenour. Map by M.C. Toyer.

The Sage Family of Reinhardt, Texas

Detail of Dallas County Map 1891 Dallas Reinhardt and Garland

Finding descendants of the pioneer Sage family is challenging. Five generations of the Sages have produced only one son per generation. Daniel Harrison Sage (1802-1866), patriarch of the family who is buried in the Ferris Cemetery, brought a family of seven children (including three sons) when he came from Kentucky to Texas in the late 1840’s; but his son James Alexander Sage (1850-1904) had only one son, Joseph Enoch Sage (1880-1961). Joe had a single son - James Donald Sage (1923-1998) and Donald had only one male heir, our informant James Donald Sage, Jr. (1952 - ). Now James has a son Joel Travis Sage (1981- ) and a grandson, Thomas Elliott (2012 - ). So through James Alexander Sage’s descendants, the Sage name has survived.

Many early Sage daughters carried the family heritage into marriages to local boys. The Sages are related by marriage to other Dallas pioneer families - kinfolk include the Dye, Chenault, Beeman, Tabor, Pemberton, and Herndon families. This Sage connection may explain why members of these related families are buried in the Ferris Cemetery.

Daniel Sage and his wife Lucy Dye (1816-1898) migrated to Texas from Oldham County, Kentucky near Louisville and settled on a 160 acre land-grant east of White Rock Creek. They first appear in the Dallas County census of 1850 which shows Daniel (a farmer, age 47) Lucy (age 34) and seven children. They had four more children, all girls, after coming to Texas. The Sage family farm passed to their youngest son, James Alexander, and then to their grandson, Joseph or “Joe” Sage.

Joe Sage and 5 sisters in birth order: Nancy Jane Lilliard, Lillie Frances Hilton, Effie Florence Ueckert, Roberta Alice Ogle, and Oma Lee Minor.

Portrait of Joseph E. Sage and Ellen Rains Sage

Joe Sage and his wife Ellen Rains raised cotton on the Sage farm just northeast of a small community called “Reinhardt”. Reinhardt, Texas was a creation of the Gulf Central and Santa Fe Railroad in 1886. Eight miles northeast of Dallas and about three miles from the Ferris Cemetery, the Reinhardt depot was the only stop between Dallas and Garland. The little town boasted a hotel, a cotton gin, a bank, three churches, a school, and general store. In 1910, Reinhardt had a population of 100 people. There was a black population as well. The black school had 35 pupils. A black cemetery, the Colby Cemetery, was near the railroad tracks.

A neighbor, John Chenault, built the first school on his farm in the late 1800s. By 1900, a new school was built near the railroad. Here two teachers taught all grades. This was replaced with a two-story brick school in 1921. It was part of the Dallas County school system. The present Reinhardt Elementary School was built in 1941. It became part of DISD when Reinhardt was annexed by the City of Dallas in 1945. While James Donald Sage attended the historic 1921 school, his son James D., Jr. attended the current 1945 campus, the “mother school” of a new Casa View neighborhood.

Reinhardt School historic marker

Reinhardt Elementary School - (blt. 1941)

Joe Sage

In 1933, Joe Sage lost his farm which had been in the family for generations. Joe, like many farmers, had accumulated debt during the Depression of the 1930’s. Although he had to sell the last 86 acres of the Sage farm to pay off his debts, Joe made enough on the sale to pay off his debts, buy a car, a new suit ofclothes, and two lots in Reinhardt. For a time he was able to stay on his land as a tenant, but in 1950 he was forced to move into Reinhardt, which was now Dallas.

Clipping of Joe Sage and his Family Farm

Clipping of men at general store

Ironically, Joe Sage’s debt was owed to his brother-in-law W.R. Euckert, owner of the Reinhardt general store. Joe was not the only local farmer to lose land to debt. The Euckerts acquired quite a bit of property which, beginning in 1948, they sold to developers of Casa View and Casa Linda. What had been open farmland northeast of White Rock Lake became bedroom communities for Dallas with street names like Peavy, Zacha, Losa, Cayuga, Stevens, DeVilla, and Hermosa - and only a few commercial buildings as reminders of Old Reinhardt.

Portrait of James Donald Sage

Mitchell Co. assembly line

Later generations of Sages adapted to life in Reinhardt that was now the City of Dallas. Some families displaced by development moved north and east to Garland or Rowlett. Joe’s son James Donald Sage stayed in Reinhardt where at age 16 he was badly injured in a car accident. He became legally blind and his plans for attending college were dashed. Donald went to work for John E. Mitchell Company which had a liberal hiring policy. The plant on Commerce St. near Fair Park produced first cotton gin equipment, then munitions for WWII, and finally auto air conditioners and even ICEE machines. Donald was not bitter about his accident; he compensated well and the assembly line work at Mitchell suited him. His son, James D. Sage, Jr. attended Eastfield College, is a electrical designer/draftsman for a consulting engineering firm, and lives in Garland. The latest generation, Joel T. Sage is married and has a son. The pioneer Sage family lives on in name and heritage.

James D. Sage, Jr. in front on Reinhardt bank/general store (blt.1903)

Joel T. Sage and his son Thomas

Submitted by Susanne Starling based on interviews with James D. Sage and his wife Hazel who provided photographs and gave a tour of old Reinhardt. Thanks also to Sue Chenault and M.C. Toyer (Dye family), Debra Walker and Bobby Don Johnson who provided information.

Wash pot from Sage farm planted with sage in James Sage’s backyard

Written by Susanne Starling

Robert Cole on Outlaw Train Robber Sam Bass

Outlaw Sam Bass

Continued below

A Tribute to Robert F. Cole

Robert Frank “Bob” Cole was a neighbor who looked after the Ferris Cemetery for over forty years. His brick home (7522 East Grand Ave.) sat on the hill overlooking White Rock Creek. It was built on Cole family land that once stretched from Tennison Golf Course to White Rock Creek.

Bob and his wife Ory had a small farm with pigs, chickens, and cows. Cole was an arborist by trade, noted for his “dressing” and breeding of trees - especially pecans and fruit trees. He was also a skilled wood carver who had a shop on his property. Cole led a comfortable life, selling and leasing Cole family land when necessary. There was plenty of time to visit with neighbors - the Ruperts, McClures, Glenns, Douglasses, andTuckers. The Coles were Hardshell Baptists so no playing cards were allowed, but they enjoyed plenty of games of dominoes and checkers.

Cole home on East Grand

Cole tree service

Bob and Ory had no children so they “adopted” their nephews, Joe and Buck Patterson, and their great nephews, Jody, Bobby, Johnny, and Bubba, who viewed the Cole place as a paradise. “Going to the country” was a favorite pastime of the boys, especially in the summer. They could fish in Uncle Bob’s stock tank, ride horseback, go barefoot, and eat to their hearts content. Stuffing their pockets with Aunt Ory’s English teacakes, the boys would roam the woods and creek banks. At mealtime, the Cole ladies loaded a big buffet table with fried chicken, ham and beef, lots of fresh vegetables from the garden, and biscuits with freshly churned butter. John and Bobby loved the Cole place and the summer days they spent with Uncle Bob and Aunt Ory.

Robert Cole and his nephew John Patterson with boys Bobby and Johnny on horseback

John Patterson Jr., our chief informant on his Uncle Bob, recalls those days fondly. He often went with his great uncle to check the Ferris Cemetery. Bob’s father, William Rappleye Cole (1831-1909) probably knew Warren Angus “W.A.” Ferris and his wife Frances “Fanny” and passed on to his son information about this early Dallas settler. Bob Cole was a history buff who loved to share tales of the old days in the Forest Hills area - of Warren Ferris, Jesse James, and Sam Bass.

Cole was worried about vandalism at the old Ferris Cemetery. He was upset that grave stones kept disappearing so he patrolled the cemetery on a regular basis. He also met and worked with Ferris’s granddaughter Lucy Mae Pounds Smith and with Frances James, the “Cemetery Lady” of Dallas. He was interviewed by local newspapers who listened to his concerns and printed stories about the declining condition of historic Ferris Cemetery.

John Patterson, Jr. on Flag Day at Cox Cemetery

John Patterson, Robert Cole’s great nephew, is now caretaker of Cox Cemetery on the west side of White Rock Lake. This is the sister cemetery to the Ferris Cemetery. Many of the same families are buried there - the Chenaults, Ryans, Tuckers, Graces. Robert and Ory Cole are buried at the Cox Cemetery. This cemetery also experienced vandalism, but the families formed an association and it is now fenced. Like his Uncle Bob, John Patterson is concerned about the history and continued care of old family cemeteries.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Dallasites Frances James, Lucy Mae Pounds Smith, and Robert Cole who championed the pioneers’ resting places, like the Ferris and Cox cemeteries.

Written by Susanne Starling with the aid of John Patterson and archives from the Dallas Historical Society

Robert Cole (1880-1959)

Account of Warren A. Ferris and the Makings of the Cemetery by Robert Cole

Sometime in the 1950’s, Robert Cole wrote an account of Warren Ferris and the Ferris Cemetery. He placed this account, along with a sketch of the Ferris home place, at the Dallas Historical Society at the Hall of State in Fair Park (A.58.41).

While there are some errors in fact, Cole’s account is valuable for its first hand observations, stories from his father William Rapply Cole who probably knew Ferris, and information from Ferris’s adult children and grandchildren who came to visit the cemetery. Cole apparently utilized the biographical sketch in Ferris’s Life In the Rocky Mountains when discussing Ferris’s life before coming to Dallas.

Cole describes Ferris’s surveys in Dallas County - the Grigsby survey (downtown Dallas), Lagow survey (Fair Park), Jones survey (Tennison Park), and Lovejoy survey (Forest Hills) and how Ferris and his second wife Fanny, took up land on Lovejoy survey #4 along White Rock Creek. “On this land they built a comfortable home, raised a large family…He doing some surveying, farming and [raising] livestock. He liked to read and had a room full of books (so a granddaughter says)”.

“They gave a small plot of land to the community to be used for a burial ground, here both lie buried, the Mother died in 1872. He died in 1874, one small daughter and Son by the first wife “Bud”. Fifty years ago this old cemetery had many nice grave stones and markers, but to date vandals have destroyed and hauled away all these stones except one marked Elizabeth Chenault Nov 1858. These stones were used to trim around the fireplace, one man said, to make flower beds one woman told.”

“The summer of 1890 (I was 10 years old at the time) Robert Ferris (son of Warren) and an old child hood friend Wes Chenault came to see my Father, saying that they had just finished clearing brush and vines from the old family graves and had built a fence … In the fall of 1900, two ladies from the North, having read the book by Ferris, came to Dallas to learn what [become] of him, the Dallas News sent them to see my Father, he was a surveyor and did some writing for the News. I took them to see the old abandoned farm and home and to see the old cemetery. Then to call on an old neighbor that knew the Ferris family and get the report he had of this family. His report was good, saying that he was the best mathematician in the state and that he had more books than he had ever seen in one home.”

“Now this Ferris Clan live well scattered over the state, now in the third and fourth generations. They have annual get togethers each summer, this past season (1956) they met in Oklahoma, while there talking of old past time, Jack Ferris, son of Robert, said that he remembered his father once say that he and Wess [sic] Chenault, one time cut the brush and vines from their lots and put up a four post fence around their lots. So here lately the grandchildren have again cleared away all brush and vines and find the old posts burned off. So with the Chenault grave still with the old marker standing, the old Ferris graves have at last been found.”

“Warren took no part in the civil war, claiming old injuries and trouble from an old musket bullet in the right shoulder he got in an Blackfoot Indian fight while in the mountains.”

“A granddaughter tells me that they have found the old chain used by the old surveyor, with lots of old papers and field notes of his old surveys of this part of the country.”

“For more than sixty five years my home, the old farm joined fences with this Ferris property, the past history was always interesting to me all through my growing up days. About one hundred yards from this old cemetary {sic}, there used to stand an old log house there is where the James Boys, Jesse, Frank and their gang lived in the winter of 1872 and 73, here is were they buried their gold. It was taken out the winter of 1889 or 90 when work men they dug a large hole but it is now about filled up with thrash {sic} and builders rubish [sic], as this part of Forest Hills is about all taken up with beautiful homes. In the old Ferris home is where Sam Bass and his gang lived while planning the holdup of the Texas and Pacific train in Mesquite. While proved to be his last, as he was killed a short while later at Round Rock, but that is another story.”

“ By this I am making the appeal to our citizens league, Historical Society or some one to do something to save this old sacred spot from further destruction or modern development.”

Robert Cole, written about 1956

Sketch of Warren A. Ferris home (sketch by memory from Robert Cole)