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Jessiah 'Jessie' DuBois Ferree
b.3 Dec 1818 Anne Arundel, Maryland, United States
d.2 Jul 1903 Burning Springs, Wirt, West Virginia, United States
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. 16 Jan 1798
Facts and Events
[Foisset_GM.GED] In the 1900 Census Jessiah Ferree is listed in James Ferree's Residence. Ferree, Josiah D. (W) 60 Maryland <Parents>James & Catharine married Barnes, Nancy J. (W) 33 Virginia 2 Mar 1879 Married by J. W. Umstead [Smoke-Ferree CD - November 2004 He had a farm in Wirt County, West Virginia- cleared the land in 1853. Jessiah D. Ferree was living with his son James Ferree in 1900. From The Story of the Ferree Family, Emory Schuyler Ferree, 1995, pages 8-5 to 8-8 Jessiah D. Ferree, 1818-1903, married Sarah E. Martin, 1824-1878, on 15 August 1852. These are my great grandparents. Apparently shortly before or after his marriage, Jessiah left his home in Baltimore, Maryland and walked about 300 miles west to the area of Burning Springs, Virginia, which is now in West Virginia. Family tradition says he had been involved in a dispute with his father James J. Ferree. Burning Springs was in an area that George Washington had surveyed as a young man. George Washington, acting like a shrewd land speculator, acquired land grants totaling 24,074 acres in this northwestern part of now West Virginia including 418 acres at Burning Springs. This area is roughly between the Kanawha and Little Kanawha Rivers which flow into the Ohio River which is about 20 miles from Burning Springs. Washington had also acquired 10,449 acres along the Ohio in this area. Washington obtained these grants in 1763. This is the year that the Kingdom of France ceded the upper Ohio River Valley to the British as a result of the French and Indian War, 1754-1763. In 1753, when he was just 21 years of age, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent the young surveyor on an observation tour and with letters of protest to the French commander on the Upper Allegheny. His report which was sent to England was a step in the beginning of the French and Indian War in which Washington became a Colonel in the Colonial Army. Governor Dinwiddie had promised a bounty of 200,000 acres of frontier land as an inducement to join the war. Dinwiddie never fulfilled this promise. Fifteen years later Washington prevailed on the successor governor, Lord Betetourt, to give suitable land along the Ohio. He and a Dr. James Craik set out on a survey. From 30 October through 3 November 1770 they explored the Kanawha area. A Washington log gives a glowing report of the woods and game. They "killed 5 buffaloes and wounded some others - 3 deer, etc." Later when the governor did make the land grants to the veterans he described the land as "the cream of the country". Washington got first look and chose the richest locations for his own. After it was all distributed to the veterans there were 19,000 acres left over. He got another 3,953 acre piece of this remnant. In his will George Washington wrote about Burning Springs: "This tract of which the 125 acres is a moiety (approx.
equal half) was taken up by General Andrew Lewis and
myself, for and on account of a bituminous spring it
contains, of so inflammable a nature as to burn as freely
as spirits and is nearly as difficult to extinguish."
Washington's intention was to leave the two acres of the actual pond to the public forever as a curiosity, but the gift never got recorded. It was acquired by Messrs. Dickenson and Shewsberry who drilled and struck a large gas well there in 1843, twelve years before Jessiah Ferree arrived in Wirt County. The area to which Jessiah came was Wirt County, Virginia. This county had just been formed four years earlier in 1848. He bought unimproved land near Burning Springs and which he catted Standing Stone after a large flat rock in the creek on the property. I have not seen a copy of the bill of sale, but I do have a copy of a complaint filed about three years later in the Wirt County Circuit Court dated 6 February 1855 where an Augustus Meylert is seeking to evict Jessiah from a plot of land of the plaintiff's 4,000 acre holding for nonpayment of $1,000. From a survey description given it is a slightly irregular 15,550' x 11,730' rectangle enclosing approximately 4,180 acres according to my calculations. From my grandfather's correspondence the original deed was from J.D. Witson to J.D. Ferree. Jessiah walked back home to Baltimore, and the same year he and his wife Sarah loaded up a wagon with all their possessions and drove back to settle on the land. As far as I have been able to find, no other Ferree families came from Maryland. While building their home they lived in a cave on the property. The great grandchildren and their children still visit the cave on occasion. The 1870 census for West Virginia shows: BURNING SPRINGS Name_________Age___Sex___Color Occupation____Born_____ Ferree, J.D. 51 M W Farmer Maryland Sarah 46 F W Keeps House Virginia
Emery 14 M W At School Virginia
Frank 12 M W At School Virginia
James 10 M W At School Virginia
John 6 M W At School West Virginia
Note: Since West Virginia was admitted to the Union 20 June 1863, John is the only one that could have been born in West Virginia. From these four boys there are many Ferrees now living in and around northwestern West Virginia. Most of the original Ferree land is still in the family (1989). The son shown as Emery is actually Emory Randolph Ferree, my grandfather. He married a girl from Burning Springs. This young family starting with the marriage in 1852, this oldest son Emory born in 1855 and the youngest son John born in 1863 were witness to the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. This Civil War tore apart the fabric of the nation, friends and even families, and West Virginia was a cutting edge of this division. In a letter dated 30 December 1861 written to Jessiah Ferree by Benjamin Wilson for his father Jessiah D. Wilson, he apologizes for the delay because of the war excitement at Clarksburg and hopes that the Ferree family and property would not be disturbed by the lawless bands of men who infested the country. Apparently both Jessiahs were in a joint land deal which occasioned this letter. When Virginia seceded from the Union In 1861, the western counties set up their own government, not just for western Virginia but for the whole Commonwealth of Virginia. It was called the Restored Government of Virginia. All during the Civil War Virginia had two governors; one in Richmond, a democrat, and a Republican one in Wheeling. This condition existed until 20 June 1863 when West Virginia was admitted to the Union. One of the first actions of the new state was to abolish slavery. After the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, Governor Francis H. Pierpont moved from Wheeling to Richmond to be governor of Virginia. It doesn't take much imagination to guess that this went over like a lead Zeppelin in Virginia. Throughout the South the defeat and the heavy hand of the Federal reconstructionists created long tasting family feuds, especially in Appalachia and very especially in West Virginia where the victors and vanquished were forced to live side by side with memories of the anarchy during the war years. You will see later that these family feuds were the reason my branch of the family moved on eventually to the far coast. My own father spoke often of the "Copperhead", an opprobrium for Southern sympathizers living in the North during the war. In many parts of West Virginia there were no law enforcement officers and no local law. Partisans had robbed, pillaged and killed with impunity. These actions were not easily forgotten or forgiven by those who continued to live there. The younger generation was brought up to be Republican (Northern) or Democrat (Southern) by inheritance. Politics in Appalachia continued in postwar years with almost war time actions The house that Jessiah built at Standing Stone was constructed of logs that were hewn roughly square dovetailed to interlock at the corners. Timber and hardwood were among the resources about which George Washington wrote, but there were also the meadow lands. In 1773 Washington was advertising in the Philadelphia paper that he would give free leases for a number of years on land between the two Kanawaha rivers to persons who would partially clear and till the land. This log construction proved to be very enduring. It was occupied by Jessiah's and Sarah's children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. In 1955 when I visited Standing Stone, most of the original timbers were still in place. When I revisited Standing Stone again in 1980, most of the original timbers had been taken away. A beaded purse that belonged to Grandma Elizabeth is in the Beauchamp-Newman Museum in Elizabeth, West Virginia. Jessiah's and Sarah's oldest son Emory Randolph took over the family home. There was one son, James F. born earlier, but he died in infancy. Two sons, Franklin David (Davey) Ferree and a second James, James W. Ferree, stayed in the area and built homes of their own and raised families. There was another daughter, Margaret Harriet who also died in infancy. The youngest son John W. Ferree, the only child born in the new state of West Virginia, left home and established a homestead farm in Bouquet Canyon, Los Angeles County, California about 1900. He never married and was known to the family in California as "J.W." Most of Jessiah's original land at Standing Stone is still owned by members of the family, but one timbered area is owned by Westvaco, a pulp and paper company (1989). References
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