Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 448 of 894
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372
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
JUSTUS WESLEY FERRIS,
WAXAHACHIE.Judge J. W. Ferris was born March 26th, 1823,
in Hudson, now a large city on the Hudson river,
in the State of New York. His father was Rev.
Phil. Ferris, an effective and zealous minister of
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Young Ferris'
early education was acquired in Cazenovia Seminary,
a noted institution of learning in Central New
York. At the age of eighteen he moved to Shelby
County, Ky., and soon entered the law office of
Hon. AMartin D. McHenry, where he pursued the
study of law. He graduated in 1845, at the age of
twenty-two, with honor, in the law department of
Transylvania University, at Lexington, Ky. In
the same year he was licensed to practice law in all
the courts of the State. In 1846 he moved to
Louisiana, where he studied the civil law under the
tuition of Judge Brent, an able and distinguished
lawyer, at Alexandria. His patron having died, he
yielded to the solicitations of his old Kentucky
friend, Rev. F. H. Blades, and emigrated to Texas
in the fall of 1847, locating at Jefferson, then a
promising young city, situated at the head of navigation
on Cypress bayou, in Cass (now Marion)
County, where he began his professional career.
The bar at Jefferson was at that time one of the
ablest and most brilliant in the Southwest. Here
were congregated at the courts such legal lights as
Gen. J. Pinckney Henderson, Col. Lewis T. Wigfall,
T. J. and J. H. Rogers, Richard Scurry, Col. W.
P. Hill and others, and here he underwent the
training and discipline that in after years enabled
him to successfully compete with the more skillful
of the legal fraternity. After a partnership of two
and a half years with M. D. Rogers he boldly struck
out into the practice upon his own account and
rapidly rose to prominence, his law briefs appearing
in the Supreme Court Reports as far back as the
Fourth Texas. For one year, during the presidential
campaign of 1852, he edited the Jefferson
Herald, doing good service for the Democratic
party. This work was done chiefly at night, without
detriment to his professional labors. He was
elected to the Legislature in 1852, as representative
and floater from the counties of Titus and Cass,
and acquitted himself with credit and distinction,
exhibiting ability in debate, and pushing the measures
he advocated with energy and success. The
authorship of the common-school system, then
adopted for Texas, is, in a large measure, justlyattributable to him, he having prepared and introduced
the bill and followed it up to its final passage.
Initiatory steps, which met with his cordial
approbation and support, were also taken in offering
large land donations to -induce the early construction
of railroads. Before the expiration of
his term of office, it became necessary for him, on
account of ill health, to change his residence, and
get away from the malaria of swamps and bayous.
Therefore, in the fall of 1854, he moved with his
family west of the Trinity river to Waxahachie,
then a small village, surrounded by rich undulating
prairies, and beautifully situated by the crystal
waters of Waxahachie creek. Recovering his health
in a few months, his field of practice soon included
seven counties. He was reasonably successful
both in criminal and civil cases, taking position in
the front rank of his profession. Among the
more important criminal cases in which he took
a prominent part for the defense mays be mentioned
those of the State v. Calvin Guest, in Ellis
County; A. J. Brinson, in Terrant County; and
A. W. Denton, in Parker County, each of whom
was indicted for murder, and acquitted after a
closely contested and exciting trial. His brightest
laurels, however, were won in the civil practice,
more especially in, suits involving titles to
land. In 1858 he and Col. E. P. Nicholson, of
Dallas, formed a copartnership which continued
for over two years. They did a large law practice
and, in connection with it, engaged in the business
of buying and selling exchange, establishing two
offices, one at Dallas and the other at Waxahachie,
for that purpose. These exchange offices were a
necessity at that time to emigrants, traders and
merchants, and marked the beginning of banking in
North Texas. In 1860 he was one of the nominees
of the Ellis County Convention, assembled for the
election of delegates to the convention called to
meet at Austin for the purpose of considering the
question of the secession of Texas from the Union,
but serious domestic considerations compelled him
to decline the nomination. In the following year
he was elected by a vote of the people to the office
of Judge of the Sixteenth Judicial District, which
position he continued to fill until the close of the
war, believing that by so doing he could the better
serve his country, his constitution being too feeble
to endure the exposure of camp life. The frontier
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/448/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .