Ferris Homestead -30 miles northeast of Capitan, NM. Charley Ferris on horseback. Mattie Mobley Ferris (Bob’s wife) holding child, Charles H. Ferris, and standing by her sister, circa 1910-1919.
All three adults died in the flu pandemic of 1919
Charles M. Ferris of Edgewood, NM is the great-great grandson of Warren Angus Ferris. He and his son, Michael E. Ferris of Longmont, CO are last of his line to bear the Ferris surname. Chuck is an advisor to the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Warren Ferris Cemetery and he generously shares with us Ferris family stories and photos.
Seated left to right - Charles D. “Charley” Ferris (1852-1919), daughter Anna Ferris (1888-1982), son Bob Ferris (1880-1970)
Standing left to right - daughter Rena Bell Ferris (1882-1972), her husband John D. DeArcy (1886-1949), and Charley’s son Charles Frederick Ferris (1886-1949). Rena and Bob are Belle Sutton’s children by Charley. Anna and Frederick are Anna Brinkman’s children by Charley. Photo taken in Texas (C.1895) Photo taken in 1905, most likely in Roswell, New Mexico.
Chuck Ferris is a descendant of Charles Drake ”Charley” Ferris (1852-1920), second son of Warren A. Ferris, who led an adventurous life as a lawman in Lampasas County, TX before retiring in 1903 to the Capitan Mountains just west of Roswell, NM. With him were his children by his deceased second wife, Belle Sutton - Warren, Bob, and Rena Belle; his third wife, Anna Brinkman; and their children - Anna and Frederick. “Uncle Charley” located his 160 acre homestead in notorious Lincoln County NM. The homestead came to be known as Ferris Canyon. It was a magnet for family members who came to live there or visit frequently. Robert Edwin “Bob” Ferris (1880-1970), Chuck’s grandfather, grew up on the Ferris homestead. He worked as a cowboy, sometimes earning $30 a month. In 1898, Bob tried to join Roosevelt’s Rough Riders but was rejected due to a vision problem. He was 18 years old, a good rider - but he could see only with his left eye. He learned to shoot a rifle using his right shoulder and his left eye - so he wasn’t a great marksman.
Hunters, left to right: Charles Frederick Ferris, Edward Warren Ferris, and Robert Edwin Ferris; sons of
Charles Drake ”Charley” Ferris(C 1910) in New Mexico
Life on the homestead was hard. Uncle Charley was a good hunter - able to provide turkey and deer to folks in the area. When NM achieved statehood in 1912, strict game laws were enacted, but Charley continued hunting to keep the families from starving. Each family had cows for milk, cheese, and butter. There were chickens too - for eggs and meat. Extra eggs could be traded in Capitan for flour and sugar. The men built a viaduct of hollowed logs, bringing water 2 miles down from a spring in the mountains. They bred cattle but there was trouble with the nearby Block Ranch who often stole their cows. It was understood that the Block Ranch was the enemy! Some families raised sheep, but the Ferrises were not the sheep kind. They refused to eat mutton.
When the Spanish flu hit in 1919, it struck the Capitan Mountains hard. Charley died of the flu that November and Bob’s wife Mattie Mobley died the next spring. Bob lost both his father and wife and was left with an 11 year old son, Charles Hemby “Charlie”. The Block Ranch edged in, stealing cattle even in those hard times. Sick at heart, Bob sold out to the Blocks, abandoned the homestead and moved to El Paso to work for the railroad. He married Cate Hughes, a nurse he met in Ft. Stanton and in 1936 they retired to Tularosa where he bought an old adobe house (1880) for $600. The walls were 2 feet thick and Bob said you could heat the place with a candle. He spent his retirement years improving that old house, adding rooms and planting an orchard. One morning he woke to a loud sound and saw a big glare of light in the northwest sky. Weeks later he learned that the first atomic bomb was tested 25 miles away! Chuck Ferris’s father, Charles H. Ferris, was raised by his dad Bob and his stepmother Cate. After they left Ferris Canyon, they lived in El Paso, TX and Fort Stanton, Lincoln, and Capitan NM. Charlie got a sketchy education in small one room school houses. Attending Capitan High School in the late 1920’s, Charlie proved to be a gifted athlete. He played basketball and was especially talented in track. He played on the first football team fielded by Capitan. The Capitan Tigers went to the state basketball tournament in 1928. Charlie was 20 when he graduated from high school; he planned to attend NM A&M to study engineering, but then came the stock market crash and the Great Depression. Charlie had a job when most didn’t so he decided to defer college. Instead, he worked, saved his money, and married Dorothy Norton in 1932. They built their home in Capitan in stages, doing the work themselves. They never had a mortgage. In 1939, their son Chuck was born.
Charles Hemby “Charlie” Ferris and father Robert Edwin “Bob” Ferris, El Paso, TX, c. 1920
Although there were hardships, growing up on the family homestead near the Capitan Mountains of NM was wonderful for young boys. Charlie had the opportunity to spend years following his grandfather around the ranch. He was taught at an early age how to properly handle a gun and clean the wild game his granddad shot. Charlie could take a rifle or shotgun apart, clean, and reassemble it before he learned to read. Soon he was hunting on his own, once killing 2 turkey with one shot. Just as he had been schooled, Charlie taught Chuck how to shoot and hunt. Chuck recalls, “Dad had a lot of hunting skills he learned from his grandfather. Dad taught me to walk quietly in the woods, without scaring the game.” Warren A. Ferris, mountain man and surveyor, spent his life outdoors, enjoying nature and the active life. His son Charley continued that tradition and passed it along to Bob, Charlie, and Chuck in New Mexico.
This profile written by Susanne Starling is based on “The Ferris Family (2006)” and “Charles Hemby Ferris (2020)” by Charles M. “Chuck” Ferris.
Ferris family Mike E Ferris (1963-),Ashley &Logan Stringham, Charles M. “Chuck” Ferris, (1939-) photo taken in 2002. Michael Ferris is the last with the Ferris surname in Chuck Ferris’s family line.