Person:Joseph Ferree (4)

"The Story of The Ferree Family" by Emory Schuyler Ferree, Page 7.1-3

The Revolutionary War came 68 years after the family arrived in America and there were some of the grandchildren of Mary Ferree still alive. One of the most prominent was Joseph, son of Daniel. He was born in 1712, the year the family arrived at the Pequea. In 1774 he was a member of the Lancaster County Committee to consider the general dissatisfaction of the British Government.

While Joseph Ferree, Esquire, was a member of this Committee of Correspondence for Lancaster. they composed and sent a declaration of their grievances to the committee in Philadelphia.

Joseph Ferree and his wife, Sarah, nee De la Plaine, must have made their home in Lancaster County and in Germantown. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1770 and reelected several more times (1771, 1772, 1773, & 1774). He was also a member of the five man Germantown committee of safety. On March 28, 1776 the committee issued a notice against profiteering merchants. In May of the same year, Ferree's house was designated a storehouse for salt and saltpeter (potassium-nitrate) used in the making of gunpowder. Sulphur was also collected, stored and issued from his home. On July 4, 1776, immediately after the Declaration of Independence, the committee of safety appointed Joseph Ferree and two others to collect lead window weights and clock weights and other lead which could be used to make bullets. They were authorized to pay six pence per pound. This was also stored in Joseph Ferree's house.

Joseph had a good sized house which he purchased from his father-in-law, James De la Plaine, the son of a French Huguenot who came to America in 1657. It was on three acres of land on the upper end of Market Square in Germantown at the corner of Main Street. This is apparently between Church and Schoolhouse Lanes. It was later divided into three stores. In 1885 it was torn down and replaced by the Mutual Insurance Building.

When Germantown was being considered the capital of the country in 1789, Joseph Ferree, as a member of the Trustees of the German Academy, with four others of the board, met with President George Washington and offered to rent the academy building for $300 per session. The offer was finally declined, because the buildings were considered too small and there were not adequate local living accommodations for all the Congress members.

Joseph Ferree is listed as one of the 800 prisoners of war held on the prison ship "Old Jersey", but there is no record of what became of them.

1. ↑ Jessie A. Landis nee Witmer. Ferree - du Bois Family Tree. (1913).
2. ↑ kamp3genealogy@@netscape.net. Heisterkamp, Charles, III, M.D..

   1949 Pine Drive, Lancaster, PA, 17601, ckamp3@@netscape,net, 717-392-0562

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 Charles Heisterkamp, III, M.D. Annotated Landis Ferree Tree. (30 April 2004).

   Date of Import: Jul 14, 2004

4. ↑ Smoke, Michael Alan. Smoke Genealogy - Family Tree Maker Web Site -01. (updated September 5, 2000).
5. ↑ Joseph Allen Ferree. Bamberger Ferree Genealogy & Document Collection. (Unpublished)
   Descendants - page 11.
6.   Charles Heisterkamp, III, M.D..

   1949 Pine Drive, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, 17601-5529, kamp3genealogy@netscape.net