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

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