Benjamin Franklin Ferris - 1846 to 1857


1846 to 1857
     On a trip to Albany from our old home we lost our old dog Watch. We after
words learned he went back about 200 miles to the old farm, followed the old
horses sold with the farm that he had followed so many years, but was
disspirited and cross and finally Bennett killed him and tried to hide the fact
by burning him in a brush heap, but the neighbors were idignant for the old dog
was loved by all who knew him and news of his tragic and untimely end reached
us on the prairie farm and if the seven young Ferrises could have laid hands on
"Old Bennett" the day we got the news, he would have had a much rougher task
than trying to raise crops on the old hill farm, with all its roots and stones.

     Father bought a yoke of oxen and a cow, rented land one year and then
bought from the US an 80 acre piece of good land 46 miles West of Chicago and
there I grew to manhood. The country was verry new, tho people poor, but honest
and industrious. I think there was not a railroad in the state then.

     The principal crop was wheat and the nearest and almost the only market
was Chicago. I think they hauled wheat 100 miles with oxen and sold it for less
than 50 cents a bushel, sometimes returning home with less money than they had
when they started. The rumble of freight wagons and the roar of prairie
chickens was musick of a frosty morning in autum, long to be remembered.

     All there was of roads was tracks of wagons and the animals that moved
them. Some of the large streams were bridged, but the small ones were not and
the wet places - sloughs - would be so cut up by freighters that sometimes the
crossings would be hundreds of rods wide, up and down the sloughs or small
streams.

     Thirteen years I lived on our farm attending school winters, at first in a
vacant dwelling house with slabs for benches and no desks - a large fire place
that had learned to smoke with few windows and a poores floor. With the
increase of population came a frame schoolhouse with smooth seats and desks for
the larger pupils.

     About 1857 my three oldest brothers went to Minnesota and took claims but
in the summer of '59 John C, who was about 3 years older than I, came back and
I got an old mare and light wagon and John had a horse and we combined and
started for Pikes Peak about November 1st, 1859.

     On that day I turned my back on my kind old parents. In my selfishness I
thought more of the excitement of travil and my own desires than I did of my
duty to my kind and always just and considerate father. I did not stop to
concidder that his burden with an afflicted wife and aged mother-in-law was
more than he could comfortably bare. True, a younger brother 18 years and a
sister 15 was still with them. I have never been on the old farm since. While
there I once had a leg broke by a horse falling on me and was once bit by a
rattlesnake. I was about as tough as a bull and about as rough.

     Brother Henry had married a Miss Franks that he met at Mt Morris Cemenary
in Ogle Co. and they had gone to the gold mine near Pikes Peak in Colorado and
John and I had started to join him, but cold snaps and flurries of snow
reminded us of the approaching winter and John proposed we look at the slave
holding South so we eraced Pikes Peak from our wagon cover and substituted
Texas.

     The first stop on this verry pleasant trip was near Gailsburg in Knox Co,
Ills where my half brother Elisha lived. He did not know us, but took us in to
his interesting family consisting of his wife, two boys and I think 4 girls.
They made us verry comfortable and at supper we made ourselves known and had
some fun. We had a week with them and enjoyed every bit of the time.

     Our trip from Ills to Texas altho uneventfull was a grand trip to say the
least. We killed quail and prairie chickens, pigs, gees and domestic fouls,
cooked out of doors and slept in our wagon.



On the Way South
     We were a husky pair and knew it and the fack that we knew it made us
somewhat lawless and verry independent. Pages could be written about the trip,
but I will abbridge by saying we crossed from the extreem NE corner of MO to
the extreem SW, and went through Indian territory. Cherokee, Chicasaw, Choctaw
and Creeks and possably other tribes and crossed the Red River at Creston on
the 1st day of Dec, into Texas.We had camped on the North bank of the river and
as the weather looked threatening we started acrost before breakfast the next
morning.



Fording the River into Texas
     We had joined a party, Jim Besett and family that lived in Texas and there
was four or five wagons of us. The river was low and we forded it. The
quicksand was bad and several teames got stuck and John and I helped them out
by getting into the water which was 2 or 3 ft deep but warm. While we were
helping others our own team and wagon sank in the quicksand and we were in the
water a long time and before we got out torrents of rain came and the wind that
had been in the South for days turned to the North and we were introduced to a
Texas Norther. With that terrible wind mixed with torrents of rain, we pulled
into Texas and camped in the woods and started to cook breakfast. We were as
wet as could be to our wasts from being in the river and the balance of our
clothing that we had on was soked by the rain. The water had run into our
wagons while we were crossing the river and we were uncomfortable to say the
least. To make it more interesting it began to snow while we were cooking
breakfast, and our first meal in Texas was, as I remember it, the first
unpleasant meal we had on the whole trip.



Camp in Texas
     It snowed all day, but we managed to get a Hotell near Sherman Grayson Co
where we put up for the night the first time we had slept in a house since
leaving Ills. On the way from Red River to this Hotell I froze my feet a
little, the first time I ever froze myself in any way altho I had always lived
"way up North".

Texas
     We were strangers in a strange land. Of course we knew no one and the ways
of southerners were strange to us, their expressions and accents were different
and our way of talking seemed to amuse them and cause us to attract attention
sometimes pleasant and sometimes otherwise. The morning of Dec. 2nd was clear
and cold. The snow was about 2 ft deep, a verry uncommon depth for that
country. We afterward learned that hundreds of hogs that run loose and lived on
acorns and other nuts mostly piled up in any sheltered place they could find
and perrished - in many cases - to the last one.



Texan
     All seemed anxious to know our poletics and we soon learned to say as
little about our belief as we consistantly could and not be rude. One man who
was verry sociable and friendly - after making many inquiries, finally asked me
what my name was up north. I was so surprised I could not answer and he added
"of courst, dont tell if you dont want to." This almost angered me, but he
broke into a harty laugh and I joined.

     We chopped wood, split posts and rails and finaly a school teacher got
shot in a hog stealing scrape and John took his school.

     This left me alone and I went over into the Chocktaw nation and worked for
an indian woman for about 30 days. A relative of hers had been attending to her
stock, but a visious horse she had had thrown him and broke his leg. I rode the
horse and got him so I could do anything with him and this gave me standing
with the Choctaws.

     During the month of February I plowed some ground for her and we planted
some garden.

     About March 1st we joined a party that was bound for northern New Mexico
as that took us near Pikes Peak. We lost one horse - mine - and John got 30
dollars per month because he had a horse. I soon got the same.

PREV <==    NEXT ==>

Ben Franklin Ferris - Introduction
Ben Franklin Ferris - 1838-1846
Ben Franklin Ferris - 1846-1857
Ben Franklin Ferris - The Early Years
Ben Franklin Ferris - Civil War
Ben Franklin Ferris - After the War
Ben Franklin Ferris - Mexican Civil War
Ben Franklin Ferris - On to Montana
Ben Franklin Ferris - Last Words
Ben Franklin Ferris - Epilogue
Battle of Apache Canyon and Pigeon's Ranch
Fort Union National Monument
Bibliography


Preface to These Documents. (Brief)
Family History
Ben Franklin Ferris - Memoir
Edna Clair Ferris - Diary.
Mallory Home Page