Background
William Jason Ferguson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Alexander and Ann (Wilson) Ferguson, both Scottish emigrants.
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WILLIAM JASON FERGUSON
Edit ProfileEducation
After the death of his father in 1848 and of his grandfather, James Wilson, a few years later, Ferguson, then a boy of nine, was obliged to abandon his schooling and contribute to the support of his family.
Career
He was first a newsboy, later a printer’s devil on the Baltimore Clipper, and at the age of sixteen a train-boy on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
His stage career began in 1863 when he was hired as call boy at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. There the shooting of Lincoln occurred on April 14, 1865, during the run of Our American Cousin with Laura Keene.
The construction of the box, which concealed its occupants from the audience, and the disposition of the other actors at the time of the assassination, support the claim that Ferguson was the sole witness.
Immediately after the assassination Ford’s Theatre closed, but Ferguson continued on the stage, serving his apprenticeship in various companies, touring New York and Pennsylvania with Sherry’s troupe, later joining the Ravels, Ben de Bar’s, the Bidwell company, and Mrs. Conway’s stock company.
In the fall of 1872 he was engaged to play juveniles at Wallack’s Theatre in New York City. Thereafter he remained in New York, establishing himself in a house in Brooklyn, and playing “enough melodrama characters to populate a town” (New York Times, post).
He appeared with Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Florence in 1875, and with Mantell and Maurice Barrymore in A1 Hayman’s stock company in 1886.
In 1890 he began his association with Richard Mansfield, with whom he played character roles in Master and Man (1890), Don Juan , Ten Thousand a Year (1892), and Beau Brummel, the unusual success of which was attributed to Ferguson’s deft characterization of Mortimer (New York Times, post). Later he joined the Charles Frohman company, creating in 1895 the part of Stephen Spettigue in Charley’s Aunt.
During the filming of The Yosemite Trail in 1922, he broke his hip, thereby ending a long and energetic career. His last years were spent with a niece and nephew in Baltimore.
Achievements
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His description has been accepted as the most reliable account of the shooting, and has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (post), the New York Times (Apr. 18, 1915), and finally in book form as I Saw Booth Shoot Lincoln (1930). Until his retirement he was to be found at any time adding to the comic zest of some Broadway performance. After half a century on the legitimate stage, Ferguson added motion-pictures to his routine with the filming of The Deep Purple in 1915. He made fourteen in all, many of which were film versions of his earlier stage successes. His mobile face, his sense of timing, and above all his mastery of the art of gesture and pantomime made him especially valuable to motion-pictures.
Connections
Shortly after leaving Ford’s Theatre, Ferguson married Fannie Pierson, an actress, who died within a few years. In 1880 he married Catherine Ferrell, who survived him.
