Jeffrey Ferris

Like many other men of his day, some details of the life of Jeffrey Ferris have been obscured by time. It is believed his was born, in England, about 1611. He arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1634 and was made a freeman of that colony in Boston on 6 May 1635.
He lived in Wethersfield, CT for about four years before moving west to what is now Greenwich, CT. On 18 July 1640, a group of men, believed to include Ferris, signed a deed that purchased the land now called "old Greenwich" from the local Native Americans. The deed noted that one chief, called Keofferam, had already sold his interests to "Jeffre Ferris." The present city dates its existence to that date.
The new community would fall under the jurisdiction of the colony of New Haven, which would not merge with the colony of Connecticut until 1665. It also would fall under the control of the Dutch colony of New Netherland from 1642 to 1650. The boundary between the Dutch and English colonies would not be settled with finality until 1664 when the English took New Netherland.
Between 1650 and 1665, the area of Greenwich was placed under the jurisdiction of Stamford. Ferris was one of the Seven Proprietors who petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly for relief from that oversight, which was granted. He was listed as one of the 27 Proprietors who arranged to purchase land to the west of the river, called Horseneck, from the remaining Native Americans. His son, Joseph was also one of the 27.
Jeffrey Ferris is known to have had three wives.
# Wife one is known only as Mary Ann. She is believed to have been born about 1614 and is known to have died in 1658.
# His second wife was a widow, Susannah Lockwood. Her maiden name is not known with any certainty. Susannah married Jeffrey in May 1661 and died later that year.
# The third wife of Jeffrey Ferris was Judith(Feake)Palmer and they married in 1662. Judith would outlive Jeffrey and remarry before her death in 1667 or 1668.
The best information now existing on Jeffrey Ferris shows that he had four sons and one daughter. His will names three of the sons and the daughter, Joseph, Peter, James and Mary.
The fourth son, John, had removed himself to Westchester County in New York. In 1667, John was one of five men to receive a patent for land from the royal governor, Richard Nicolls.
Jeffrey Ferris is believed to have died in Greenwich on 31 May 1666.
Descendants of Jeffrey Ferris and his offspring number in the tens of thousands. Notable among them are
* George Washington Gale Ferris - inventor of the Ferris Wheel
* Woodbridge Nathan Ferris - governor of Michigan and U.S. Senator from that state
* John Ferris - member of the Canadian House of Commons
* Joshua Beal Ferris - member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut
* Rear Admiral Franklin Floyd Ferris
* Dr Isaac Ferris - Third president of New York University
* First Lieutenant Eugene Washington Ferris - awarded the Medal of Honor for valor on 1 April 1865 in northern Virginia.
* Second Lieutenant Geoffrey C. Ferris - posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor on 6 May 1943 in Tunisia.

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