THOMAS WHITE FERRY

Background

Thomas White Ferry was born on Mackinac Island, the son of William Montague Ferry and Amanda White.

Education

His father had been brought up on a farm in New England, but later in life had studied in Union College, and in 1822 was ordained in New York to the Presbyterian ministry.

Thomas, after having graduated from the village school, was variously employed until he became a clerk in Elgin, HI.

Career

In the same year he established a mission on Mackinac Island; the next year he opened a school for Indian children. Thanks largely to the assistance of his wife, his labors began to bear fruit (Williams, post).

Mrs. Ferry was the eldest daughter of Thomas White, of Ashfield, Mass. She had been well educated and was deeply religious. Her second child, Thomas White, was born in the Mission House, which since 1845 has served as a summer hotel (Wood, post, I, 414).

In 1834 the Ferry family removed from the island to a tract of wild land near the mouth of the Grand River, where the father founded the town of Grand Haven, and built up a flourishing lumber business (obituary in the Grand Haven Union, Feb. 6, 1868).

Thomas, after having graduated from the village school, was variously employed until he became a clerk in Elgin, HI. Two years later he returned and became his father s partner in the lumber business.

At the age of twenty-one he was elected member of the board of supervisors of Grand Haven, and in 1850 he entered the state legislature, serving until 1852. From 1857 to 1858 he was a state senator, in 1860 he was a delegate to the Republican Rational Convention at Chicago, from 1865 to 1867 and from 1869 to 1871, a member of Con- served as an editor, Ferry was represented by such varied contributions as book reviews, essays on political trends, and a novel of life in colonial New England.

His natural inclinations drew him to the law. His professional training was obtained in the offices of Thomas W. Osborne of Fairfield and of Thomas B. Butler of Norwalk. In 1846 he was admitted to the bar and took up his practise in Norwalk.

He served his local community as judge of probate ( 1849—56) and as state’s attorney for Fairfield County (1857 - 59). Meanwhile, he had entered upon his political career. In 1855 and 1856 he was a member of the Connecticut Senate.

Although at the time a relatively young man, he was made chairman of the committee on the judiciary. In 1858, after having failed of election to Congress two years previously, he was sent to the House of Representatives, where he served on the committee on Revolutionary claims and on the famous Committee of Thirty-three on “the disturbed condition of the country. ”

In 1860 he lost his seat to a Democrat. Upon the declaration of war, he was made colonel of the 5th Connecticut Volunteers. Later he saw service with the Army of the Potomac, in North and South Carolina, and finally with the X Army Corps on the James River.

He resigned his commission on June 15, 1865. His election to the Senate in 1866 was probably the result of a deadlock between the two leading candidates for the nomination, although his enemies were ready to ascribe the victory to chicanery.

Hitherto he had been regarded as a radical on Reconstruction, so much so indeed that one hostile paper remarked editorially, “Ferry is as radical a man as can be found in Connecticut” {New Haven Register, May 11, 1866). Once in the Senate, however, he pursued a fairly moderate course.

Despite the profound abhorrence with which, as a New Englander, he regarded the slave-holding oligarchy, he favored a general policy of conciliation; yet he voted for the conviction of President Johnson and was one of those who filed opinions on the case.

When he sought réélection in 1872, his future was precarious. Both by his manner of obtaining election and by his conduct in the Senate he had alienated the regular Republicans. Fortunately for him, a coalition of Democrats and Liberal Republicans came to his aid. His réélection was hailed by the Liberal Republicans as a presage of success, but he made haste to dissociate himself.

He was an expert in finance, and after the financial crisis of 1873, was the first to submit a plan for the remedy of existing evils.

On Deember 2 and 4, 1873, he presented propositions to remove the monopoly feature of the national banking system, to stop the contraction of too much paper currency, and to issue a low-interest convertible bond.

His speeches on finance were characterized by concise statements, sound logic, and a lack of oratorical display. On December 21, 1874, he introduced a resolution for revising and reclassifying the rules of the Senate, and two years later his revision was adopted unanimously and without amendment.

During the famous Hayes-Tilden electoral count of 1877 he presided over the sixteen joint meetings of Congress which resulted in a decision in favor of Hayes. It was a time of intense excitement, and apparently only the vigor and ability of berry, who had no precedent to guide him, prevented a national disaster. His integrity and industry were such that under Hayes he was reelected president pro tempore of the Senate without nomination of an opposing candidate.

In 1883 he was defeated for a third term as senator by Thomas W. Palmer of Detroit. The rest of his life was shadowed by this disappointment and by the failure of the lumber business which he and his brother, E. P. Ferry, had organized.

He died in Grand Haven, from cerebral apoplexy during the night of Oct. 13-14, 1896.

Achievements

• During the Shenandoah campaign in the spring of 1S62 he was promoted brigadier-general. In the campaign of 1871 he succeeded in obtaining a seat in the Senate at Washington. On March 9, 1875, he was elected president pro tempore of the Senate, and in this capacity he acted at different times thereafter.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The currency, free banking labor own capital: Speech of Hon. Thomas W. Ferry, of Michigan, in the United States Senate, Tuesday, March 10, 1874

Membership

he was elected member of the board of supervisors of Grand Haven. Also he was a member of the Connecticut Senate.

Connections

He was never married.

Father:

William Montague Ferry

Mother:

Amanda White

Brother:

E. P. Ferry