This book, (2021) in 366 pages, is divided into 11 Chapters, each representing a generation from Samuel in England born in London in 1616 to the author, born in 1929. Samuel was notable as the vicar of a large parish church in Beverley in Yorkshire. His son Zachariah left England in about 1665 for Charlestown in the colony of Massachusetts. Essentially, two generations lived in New England, followed by two in Wilmington, DE and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and five in Milton, IN. The author was born in Milton but his career was centered in Michigan.
Effort was made to identify the religious faith of each generation and their occupation. The church sequence was Anglican - Puritan - Anglican - Presbyterian - Quaker - Hicksite Quaker - Milton, IN Christian Church - Interdenominational (Baptist, United Church of Christ, Methodist and Presbyterian). Agriculture was a prominent occupation often supplemented by woodworking. Zachariah was a farmer but also served as a soldier. His grandson John moved to Wilmington, DE to join his brother in the tanning business.
Zachariah's son Zachariah was the first white inhabitant of New Milford, CT and a noted surveyor and businessman. His son David, brother to John, this author's direct ancestor, turned down an opportunity to become a Presbyterian minister and became a Quaker. His reasons and experience are covered in detail in the book, which would be of interest to those studying the history of the Society of Friends. He converted his entire family to Quakers except his father. Even Zachariah's wife was converted. The siblings became Quaker ministers.
Since the Ferrises were Quakers over eight generations and nearly 300 years, this genealogy is a history of the Society of Friends Most significant was their equal treatment of women and opposition to slavery. Hicksite Quaker women were leaders in the suffrage movement in the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s including Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, sister of this author's great-grandmother. Anna Stanton, first cousin of Coggeshall's, (both raised in Milton, IN) spent most of her career educating freed slaves and their children after the Civil War.
Nathan Ferris, farmer, of the fifth generation freed 10 slaves in Maryland in 1782, 80 years before the Civil War. sex. When Nathan freed the ten slaves, he gave up half the value of his farm.
The book also summarizes two books the author published about the Ferris ancestors, Benjamin Ferris -- A True Renaissance Man (Father of Delaware History, Quaker Leader, Architect and More) (2019) and Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette and Her Speeches (2017). A CD with 18 handwritten copies of Coggeshall's speeches was obtained from the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute connected to Harvard University.
