Elisha Peyre Ferry was the son of Pierre Peyre Ferry, one of Napoleon’s colonels of cavalry, who emigrated from France in 1814, settled first near Sandusky, Ohio, and then removed to a village which later became Monroe, in the southeastern corner of Michigan. The veteran’s love for the name Peyre was transmitted to his sons and by them, in turn, to all their own children.
After finishing in the public schools of his birthplace, Monroe, Michigan, Elisha began the study of law, and in 1845 was admitted to the bar.
The next year (1846) he moved to Waukegan and began his life-work. In addition to establishing the foundations of an unusual public career in that Illinois town.
Ferry was a successful lawyer from the beginning of his practise and public office came to him early. Pie became Waukegan’s first inayor, was elected a presidential elector in the campaigns of 1852 and 1856, was a member of the Illinois constitutional convention in 1862, and for two years thereafter served as a bank commissioner of Illinois.
During the Civil War he also served as assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of colonel, on the staff of Governor Yates. In this capacity he aided in forwarding many Illinois regiments to the field and in the course of that duty made a friend of General Grant, who, on becoming president in 1869, appointed him surveyor-general of Washington Territory and promoted him to the governorship in 1872. Soon after he assumed that office it was announced that Emperor William I of Germany, as arbitrator, had decided the San Juan case in favor of the United States, and Governor Ferry promptly transferred the large archipelago to Whatcom County for temporary government.
He was reappointed in 1876. At the end of his second term in 1880 he moved to Seattle and resumed his work as a lawyer and a banker with the firm of McNaught, Ferry, McNaught & Mitchell and with the Puget Sound National Bank.
He began a beautiful family life, on February 4, 1849, by becoming the husband of Sarah B. Kellogg, daughter of Dr. David Kellogg of Waukegan.
