Just as I traced the King line back to Henry King of Rhode Island so here I would like to trace the Ferrin line back to its beginning in this country. Fortunately, most of this tracing has already been done. Frank Myer Ferrin who, before he died on 15 July 1939, had gathered a large amount of information which was arranged and published by his secretary Mary A. Brennan in 1941 under the title Captain Jonathan Farren of Amesbury, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendents. Also a brief Ferrin family history may be found on pp. 920-21 in the second volume of Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire, Editor Ezra S. Steams (New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1908). Additional information comes from census data, from relatives (especially my Uncle William Ira King) and from a document "Dedicated To The Ferrin Family" written by Levi M. Valentine for a Ferrin Family Reunion. Before proceeding, note that Ferrin has been spelled in many ways: Farren, Faren, Ferren, Farrin, Farrind, etc. Captain Jonathan1 and his son Zebulon2 usually spelled their name Farren; but Zebulon's New Hampshire descendents spelled it Ferren or Ferrin.
Jonathan1 Farren, who was born about 1697, is said to have emigrated from England to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where he met and on 10 December 1719 married Sarah Wells, daughter of Titus and Joanna (Rowell) Wells and granddaughter of the Reverend Thomas Wells, first minister of Amesbury, who performed the marriage ceremony. Sarah was born in Amesbury on 30 July 1698 and several of her children were born there too. Of them Zebulon(2), the fifth of thirteen, was born on 18 September 1727.
Zebulon2 Farren married Alice Davis Tucker, also of Amesbury, on 9 July 1747. She was twenty-six years old. Soon afterwards they moved to South Hampton, New Hampshire. Meanwhile, when a new Province Line was established in 1741 the strip of land in Amesbury on which Captain Jonathan Farren lived had been annexed to New Hampshire and, later, became part of Newtown (now Newton), New Hampshire.
Sometime during 1759 - 1761 Zebulon2 moved his family from South Hampton to Sandown, New Hampshire, where, it is believed, on 9 December 1761 his ninth child Zebulon3 was born and six years later his wife died. He then moved his family to East Haven, Connecticut, remarried and by 1791 had fathered nine more children.
Zebulon3 Ferrin returned to New Hampshire where on 25 September 1785 he married 20-year old Lydia Colburn of Newport and began raising his family. Zebulon4<, their fourth child of eight, was born on 23 October 1793. Seven years later the family moved from Newport to Croyden. There Zebulon4 grew up and married Mary Hoyt. Eli,5 the first of their nine children, is believed to have been born in Croyden. He would become Louis' father. Eli was named after his father's uncle who as a young seafarer died of yellow fever in the West Indies. By 1820 the family crossed the Connecticut River to spend a few years in Morristown, Vermont; then continued westward in the spring of 1827 to Livingston County in New York State.
As a young man Eli5 Ferrin became a brick molder and established a very active business in the trade. He married Harriet Bacon of Williamson, New York, on 6 November 1837 when she was only sixteen years old and began raising a family. A few years later he moved his business and family first to Lima and by 1846 to Pittsford near Rochester, New York. Here they lived for nearly 40 years. Finally, Eli and Harriet spent the last fifteen years of their lives with their son George in Fairport where both died in 1899. They had nine children: Francis Jacob Ferrin [known as Frank], born 30 April 1838, was a carpenter, contractor and builder who married Ebenezer King's oldest daughter Louisa J. (pronounced with a long i); William E. Ferrin, born in Springwater, New York, on 8 May 1840 as reported in his "Certificate of Death" from the Army of the Potomac was killed on 18 June 1864 "while charging the enemy's works before Petersburg (Virginia);" Sarah A. Ferrin, born 15 March 1843, was a teacher for several years who married Charles Patterson of Rochester, New York, on 2 September 1869 but made their home in Pittsford; George E. Ferrin, born 16 February 1845 had a wife named Electa, operated a harness shop in Fairport. and became a Methodist minister; Alvira A. Ferrin, born 20 April 1847, married Charles Seymour on 3 November 1864 and moved to Massachusetts; Sylvanus B. Ferrin [known as Vine], born 14 December 1851, whose wife was named Reset?) became a car builder; Malissa M. Ferrin, born on 9 September 1855, married Joseph Myers on 10 September 1873 and lived in Penfield, New York; Louis M. Ferrin, born 5 February 1859, married George Eugene King on 13 December 1876; and Dorothy Alice Ferrin, born 12 October 1860, married Levi M. Valentine on 1 January 1884. All these children are sixth generation Ferrins of Captain Jonathan.
William Ira King told me that his Aunt Minerva [Melissa?] had a son Eric [Frederick?] who broke through ice while skating and drowned and that his Aunt Sarah was a big fleshy woman whom my mother Elizabeth King took out for visits to friends using a small buggy pulled by our pony Comet. One day on such a visit she had so much difficulty getting back into the buggy that he and his boss had to hoist her aboard.
Levi Valentine, Uncle Bill went on to say, mortgaged his farm in 1879 to build the three-storey Valentine's Hall with a ballroom on the third floor. He had built it in anticipation of a planned railroad station to be located near there; but the plan fell through and Levi lost it all. Levi's wife Alice then opened a grocery store in the Hall. Also, a furniture maker's shop, a doctor's office and a few other businesses were located there. At a later date his Aunt Alice gave up the grocery store to run a boarding house in Rochester.
I have traced the Ferrin line from Captain Jonathan Farren through six generations to my Grandmother Louis M. (Ferrin) King and her siblings. It should be noted, however, that the line is all male prior to my grandmother. There is good evidence that the preferable tracing should be done through the females in the family; but due to the predominantly male orientation of our society the records for tracing the female line would be difficult to follow. With this caveat in mind we should not take our ancesterial lineage all too seriously. Each of us is the culmination of many lines that are intertwined and knotted here and there through marriage so that, undoubtedly, we are all interrelated. All we can say about the foregoing exercise is that it shows how Louis M. Ferrin is connected to Captain Jonathan Farren who came from England to these shores very early in the eighteenth century.
April 8, 1994
