John Ferris

Citations

1. [S3] James G. Ferris, Bones & Bombs, Many of the dates are located here.
2. [S10] Elizabeth Seaman Leggett, Journals of Elizabeth Seaman Leggett, "My mother used to say that her name was Anna and that grandfather in his foundness called her "MY Anna" and so the name came to be. I am quite inclined to think it was the case, as my Mother was named Anna - and she said it was for her mother - well this My Anna - as I will call her - was a wonderful little person - in all ways that appertaided to home rule - and excellent housekeeping. Many aneodotes are related of her bravery during the revolutionary war, the old house bears the marks of the British bullets. In this great generous mansion there are four kitchens upon the first floor in range with sitting or common room. To save time, you may know that everything in this home was on a most generous scale, large rooms, hall kitchens, from the sitting room that had its outlook over a great stretch of farm land you saw the Long Island Sound. The first kitchen was next to this room - it also was very large. As we enter it from the back door of the sitting room a swing door, or a door very common in the old house out in two parts, the door could be closed to prevent children crawling out - and the upper to let in light and air - there was a pavement of stones from a distance outside the kitchens, these brot from the fields and adjusted as best they could be, putting the flat side uppermost. The pump stood directly in front of the door perhaps 20 feet off, with a huge trough to which the horses were brot to drink and in which ducks, geese, and children delighted to dip into. Beside the door and its huge iron handle - which served also for a knocker - was a deep bay window, a seat in it, where, children also delighted to climb into. A small passage continuing on nearby the front wall led into the great (?) kitchen of all where, when I was young, old Delilah, Dilly for short, reigned. What I am trying to write about was during the Revolutionary War - opposite to the door that we came in from the sitting room was the fireplace - to describe this I would have in every part of it deal in the superlative not only as my childhood eyes saw it, but in measurement of older years. It is yet - tall mantle fully six feet from the stone hearth that came halfway to the sitting room door - these large hearths were to protect from the fire - if one of the logs broke apart scattering coals and chunks - on the mantle were the tinder box, pipes and the gun with many useful traps but the glory was the open fire place. Nevermind how wide or deep it was Mrs. Beecher in her will describes it to you. A stuff green curtain was tacked on the mantle and hung down perhaps _ of a yard, this to carry the smoke. Children could site inside this spacious place - one each side of the blazing fire and crack nuts or eat apples and listen to stories, but one place in the side of the fireplace was funny - it looked like a little oven but had no door to it - it was built perhaps three feet into the wall. In this a baby could be cuddled after it was put to sleep and lay as snug as a bug in a rug for any indefinite period. Cupboards, two, that nearly reached to the ceiling - quite fanciful these with scolloped shelves and painted red inside - were filled with queer old China much mended some of it - ancient all probably came into our country when the first great he and she of our family "Came over". Much of it wedge-wood ever so pretty. As to their value - would bring if not almost their weight in gold for they were very heavy - yet fabulous prices - following along the wall we come to the door leading into the hall - then a turn and we get to the door leading to that mysterious region the cellar, oh these cellars of our grandfather - full of salt water - delicacies in winter oysters, clams, soft clams also - all cured with sea weed, great heaps of these that were fed every day or two with Indian meal - and a sprinkling of salt water - and they grew fat, Yum, Yum - if you read the times of the old war, you will know something of the Hoboys and Skinners scamps who stole from friend and foe alike, landless, reckless - who prowled about the farm homes seeking what they might not only devour but to carry off the cattle and sheep, chickens anything. So many homes were left unprotected with women and a few servants, perhaps slaves in those days. The home was a mile from the main road or from any neighbor. The farm itself was quite a territory. You know in those days farms were not bought by the acre but by the mile so Grove Farm extended for many miles. When I was a child and heard my uncles tell, I thought, it embraced all of the West Chester, well it was a grand place for those fellows to attach - Grandfather was often way with his sloop, perhaps taking a load of oysters or farm truck to the city, New York, for all farm produce brot large prices - this middle kitchen was where the mothers and daughters did the nicer cooking - preserving, cake making - often churning - and find ironing and clear starching - a very useful place - Now our grandmother was making dough-nuts, most savory odor. Now too there came tramping a set of these outlaws and came into this middle kitchen; our little grandmother knew no fear - but she knew well enough what this sudden incoming meant, in a flash, she thought of the barns, horses, cows, sheep - everything. A big big fire blazing on the hearth with great inviting wooden arm chairs - how good it did look and feel to those fellows after their tramp in the snow. They waited no invitation to be seated and the wooden bowl full of foamy dough and the smell of the frying cakes - grandmother gave her kitchen of (?) to a girl who and sent her into the kitchen proper where some servants had come in to toast by the fire and said, "Sit down boys, and we will have some cider for you." The boys felt sure of their game and the smell of the cakes, and the prospect of cheer beguiled them and good little grandmother knew how to make the best of a bad situation. It was not the first time that these gangs had been about. The cider was hot - set by the fire to heat - good strong cider, with a drop in it. Always there was a plan laid, if an attack threatened.
   
        Oh, the grand-mothers of the war time. She joked with the boys saying you've caught us this time, you are more lucky than those fellow who came around last, but be easy with us. I'll treat you well, so don't destroy what you don't take, you know the Quakers are peaceable and make friends with everybody, even those who called enemies - but in the providence of things all are one in the sight of the Father. The cider began to work, the hot good cakes did their share and being so softlyen sconced and knowing the man of the house was away, they ate and frank and snoozed a little and the time went on. Finally they went to the barns - to find that all the live stock had been driven to West Chester, and a small army of neighbors had come with guns to help their neighbor - they had been fairly beaten and no blood shed - then our little grandmother laid her hands on her hips and laughed for she was a merry woman, and old Sam, the master par excellence among the servants, said, "We did better then the masta could." And for his ready wit was filled with cider and dough-nuts.
   
        Another Story of Myannah. As I have said Grandfather was often from home, feeling so safe with leaving his better half at home to protect the house. It was as stone house with walls two feet if not more thick, heavy windows, shutters well ironed - "Sam, Misses was coming" - "All right Sam, call the boys, get the girls, find all the guns, shovels, big boats they'll think it is an army. Make all the noise you can, bolt the doors, call down stairs up stairs, tramp like horses, point the guns and fire, load fast, get at different windows. Some get to the top chambers - don't be afraid - fire away - and raise away. Thus the little grandmother again - the Skinners, for it was just a party of them, thought the house was garrisoned and again the little woman put her hands on her hips and laughed and the castle was saved.
   
   Another bit, being Quakers, they were non-combatants - but some had declared "the old fellow must have money hidden. They would catch him. Perhaps it was intuition. Never mind, it was her business to take care of her husband, and seeing danger she meant to get him safe - there had been a talk among the neighbors that "they were after Massa" This had been floating in the air. "Take your master Sam - open a hole in the stone wall of the orchard, build it up around him - take your gun - a good ways off from him - and do as tho you were saving the orchard, keep away from him - and if you have to fire among them the boys will be armed and ready to jump for them. All night grandfather laid in his stone chamber, all night Sam took care of the orchard. Nothing was hurt. They went off, swearing they would come another day for the d---d Quaker and grandmother had a nice boiled chicken for the beloved man she meant to take care of - many stories of this brave woman, full of fun and vim - from my mothers many stories. The word fear had no meaning to "Wyannah" - the hall was broad but was much broadened at the far end, here in the old time was the dining room - all the meals were eaten there in the summer. I rather think the middle kitchen was used in winter. My grandfather was a mild autocrat - and was called "Master", but his wonderfully bright alost wife was the soul of the manor, wise enough to make him believe he was the ruler. She loved her John with a true heart - always she the first up is the morning to be about tending to the spinning girl, seeing that the host in the kitchen were up and around. (?) Grandfather left to finish his morning nap. Always in the cellar hung a tender chicken or two ready for the coals and dearly she liked to pet her husband suggesting his poor appetite, if he waited a little before he ate, "Go Kate, throw a chicken on the coals, your master would like to have it." I fancy the said chick was very near done when Katy went for it, for mother said it came on the table in an incredibly short space of time, then grandmother would say, "John, try to eat it." Probably, grandfather John had been filled with a good lunch at bed time, with perhaps a pleasant night cap of Punch so common in those days of coaring. At one time, they had a well there with buckets - a child in playing fall in - grandmother saw it and in a moment caught the rope of the bucket and swung herself down and brot up her drenched child. Mother said she never waited to parley - fearless - quick to comprehend - first in the home. She died long before I was born. Oh dear, I had no grandparents living as I have said and oh how I have yearned for them, saved every item I can get - few indeed - if I had lived in the East I could have gotten more - With what reverence I used to look at the ancient furniture in the room where she and grandfather slept. I seemed to have realized the latter from knowing my uncle Elijah Ferris being there so much during my childhood he somehow fell heir to the homestead and there it was and is, not very different in its outward look from the aims the Skinners and Bautboys made their raids. Uncle Elijah was a splendid looking man much too as mother used to describe her father. "The master", he too was called, and was the same as I have said by nature a mild sort of autocrat and his wife, the second she, I knew, petted him much in the way that as he said his mother had petted his father. Uncle Elijah like his father was sort of noble of the manor always a plate was set for the stranger that might come at meal time, always a beautiful table. At one end the famous hams, which was a part of the institution of the house. Every Saturday morning, old Billy had the famous iron pet swung upon the crane filled with cold water and in it, the ham. Never a ham was eaten until it was a year old - ripe - cured with such a receipe as a king would like to have - so much sugar, so much salt petre - well all day the kettle swung on the orange with a gentle simmer just up to the edge of boiling. To Dilly, if the master who at interval came to see how it progressed found it boiling, "Dilly", he would say in strong emphasis, "do you know that this ham is perhaps ruined?" If uncle said 'you' with emphasis so contrary to his Quaker language, the castle 'thee', even to the dog and horses they said 'thee', Dilly never much alarmed at her master's 'you' said, "I'll see to that Master Ferris." He was no master for Dilly for she held the rod of empire thro the length and breadth of that farm and she knew it well - Yet generally the old gentleman tried to be as I have said the mild supreme - and dilly upheld him in this except as regarding her own position. Every cow knew when the soothing bitter sweet ointment was softly rubbed on the bruised parts of it's hurt leg that all would be well. The poor boy Dick who had chill blains got well when Dilly planted him in the corner of the kitchen chimney and put a pail of salt hay under his frost bites - and set the hay while his feet seemed boiling over the hot stuff. Take his feet off? Not a stir until Aunt Dilly said they could, if ever the Son worked anywhere it did under that potent withered bent old woman, her shoulders I can only describe in this way, if a large pumpkin were out in two and the half put over her shoulders and her dress drawn over it, it would look like Dilly's shoulders, the seams of her face looked as tho they were smoked, deep seams. She was a white woman, altho the smoke from the fire place and from her pipe had left indelible marks, so bent was she one had to look down and under to see really well, her face - remember Augustus that now I am talking of the time when my uncle Elijah was the master and when I was a little girl that this Aunt Dilly held away - I wish you could have been a little boy then, too, but then you know, it was not possible - but oh how you would have enjoyed seeing Uncle Elijah toast the sausage", you see then the sausage meat was shopped in a famous big trough and for a week in the winter evenings all the available force of servants and axes, cleavers, short hatchets had been plied to get the meat fine enough to be packed in jars, some of it also in skins - finally Dilly said, "its fine enough you'd ort to have had it down long ago." Well, then for the seasoning. To so much meat so much salt, black pepper, a "leetle" osyene - let it lay over night with the seasoning to get thro it - next night always there was a sort of charm about night work, the hogs must e cut at night, doughnuts cooked, nuts cracked to put away in large earthen jars - "to (?) ready." Always this the watchword, to "be ready" beautiful in its meaning of hospitality. In the living room a blazing fire the blaze lighting the whole room altho Uncle Elijah had the round stand with the two brass candlesticks and in the tray all as bright - as rubbing and rotten stone could make them, so were the and irons - with their steeple tops - in the days of your ancestors anything that could be make bright - by hands were - red lead for painting the bricks of the fire place, potlead for brightening any iron lid - whiting for silver, and wax for furniture. If only your mother could have lived in those days when even the pots and kettles used in the kitchen were made as bright as a knife blade for two inches below the rim."
3. [S20] Eliza Seaman Leggett, Journal of Eliza Seaman Leggett, "... the good Grandmother Myannah, how she was always the first one up in the horse and did not disturb Grandfather until the breakfast was ready - generally he was down by this time - but on his not coming his grandson Lyndley M. Ferris, a little boy, was sent up to call him - and found him seated on the side of the bed partly dressed. He turned to Lyndley and said, "I'm dying, and before the family could be called, he was gone..."
4. [S20] Eliza Seaman Leggett, Journal of Eliza Seaman Leggett, The Ferris family "burying ground" this is the way they were designated, has received far before the Revolutionary War the departed of the Ferris family. My grandparents lie there, John and Mary Ferris, my own mother, brother Percival Seaman, but my brother Doctor William F. Seaman and my sister Marianna Middlebrok were buried in North Street - the bodies or as much as could be fathered of them were taken a few years ago to Greenwood, the society of friends burying ground attached to Greenwood Cemetery but as no one knows of a single dear one - oh! My beautiful beloved sister Marianna, my revered father, and my dearly almost worshipped brother William - think not of their graves and try to take them to my soul as being still conscious of my never-dying love..."