Ancestors

Joseph Ferris

Joseph Ferris was a son of Jeffrey Ferris, one of the first settlers of Stamford, Connecticut, who had come down from Watertown and Wethersfield. Anderson's study of the immigrants of 1634 and 1635 puts his birth about 1632, in England, so he crossed the Atlantic as a small child. Mead's history of Greenwich puts it about 1638. On 20 November 1657 he married Ruth Knapp at Stamford. The Stamford register enters it as "Ferris, Joseph and Ruth Knap, m. 20, 9, 1657, and had Peter, b. 8, 9, 1660." The register counts months from March, so the ninth month is November. Ruth was a daughter of Nicholas Knapp, another Stamford settler.

Joseph went with his father to Greenwich, on the western edge of the colony next to New York. In 1656 he and his father and his brother Peter were among the Greenwich men who asked to come under the government of New Haven. He was one of the original proprietors of the town, the men who held its common land, and he was named in the patent the General Assembly granted Greenwich in May 1665. When the proprietors bound themselves to support the ministry and the town's privileges, the list ran "Jeffre Ferris, Senre; Joshua Knapp, Senre; Joseph Ferris; Jonathan Reynolds; Angell Heusted, John Mead, Senre; John Hobbe."

The town trusted him with its land. On 6 February 1670 he was one of four men chosen "to lay out a township uppon the land lieing near Horseneck Brook to ye number of thirty lots, four accres to a home lot." On 27 April 1675 he was one of seven empowered "to lay out all ye lands lying between the Mianus and Byram Rivers." On 10 May 1675 he, John Bowers and John Reynolds were chosen to arrange "a speedy construction of a comfortable house for a minister." Three years later the town's first settled minister, Jeremiah Peck, came to live in it. In 1686 Joseph's daughter Ruth married the minister's son Samuel.

A neighbor, William Grimes, had left land to the town for the ministry. When Grimes's wish had not been recorded, Grimes named "my friend Joseph Ferris of Greenwich" to act for him and see it settled. On 7 March 1694 Joseph Ferris and John Reynolds disposed of Grimes's land and meadow "to ye towne for ye use of ye ministrie."

Joseph made his will on 9 June 1699. He left his eldest living son John a house at Horseneck next to Gershom Lockwood's, with land bought of Zachariah Baldwin and a lot bought of Samuel Jenkins. He named his sons James, Moses, Benjamin, Caleb, about twenty, Joseph, about sixteen, and Joshua, and his daughters Hannah, Ruth Peck, wife of Samuel Peck, and Lydia Reynolds. His wife Ruth, his brother Peter Ferris and his son-in-law Samuel Peck were to administer the estate. The inventory was taken on 24 July 1699 by Jonathan Reynolds, Robert Lockwood and Joseph Knapp. On 27 November 1699 the court ordered the widow, Mr. Samuel Peck and Peter Ferris to distribute it.

If Joseph Ferris is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Joseph Ferris (1632-1699)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/joseph-ferris-1632-1699-e75d66.