Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 5 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 8

John E. Ferris, proprietor of The John E. Ferris Intelligence Service of Milwaukee, came to this city from St. Louis, Missouri, where his birth occurred September 21, 1877. He is a son of William M. Ferris of Illinois and Sarah E. (Estill) Ferris of Kentucky. The great-grandfather of Mr. Ferris in the maternal line was Captain James Estill, who served with the rank of captain in the Virginia militia and accompanied Daniel Boone into Kentucky, thus penetrating into a pioneer region. He was killed in a fight with the Indians at Boonesboro, Kentucky, and it was the record of such tragedies that brought to Kentucky the name of "the dark and bloody ground." He was recognized by the colonial assembly as a colonial patriot and his name stands high on the list of those who attended the carrying of civilization into the western wilderness. The city of Galesburg. Illinois, was founded by the ancestors of Mr. Ferris. One of the name married a Miss Gale, whose family had followed the Ferris family westward by wagon from New York state. They determined upon the name of Galesburg. George Washington Gale Ferris, who built the Ferris wheel at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, was a son of the union of a Miss Gale to a Mr. Ferris.

John E. Ferris is numbered among the hundreds who have profited by the pioneer activities of his forefathers and others as civilization was carried farther and farther westward. He attended the public schools of his native city and afterward became a student in the Washington University of St. Louis, being graduated from the manual training department with the class of 1896. He next entered Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, and later became a student in the University of Michigan, from which he was graduated on completing a scientific course in 1900. He next became a student in the medical department of the St. Louis University, which he attended in 1901-2. Later he represented the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in the Michigan legislature in 1903, putting forth the claims of the exposition for recognition by the Wolverine state. When that task was completed he joined the medical and scientific publication department of Parke Davis & Company of Detroit, Michigan, and remained with the house until 1908. He afterward engaged in the publishing business on his own account, founding and publishing the Michigan Trade Review, a journal devoted to commerce and located at Saginaw, Michigan. In 1913 Mr. Ferris joined the sales force of the Jewett & Sherman Company of Milwaukee and in March, 1914, was advanced to the position of city sales manager of that house, continuing in the position until the spring of 1917, when he was appointed into the service of the bureau of investigation of the United States Department of Justice at the Milwaukee office. This was the secret service branch of the department, under direct supervision of the United States attorney general. In March, 1918, Mr. Ferris was transferred to the Military Intelligence branch of the General Staff Corps of the United States army, as agent in charge of the state of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He continued thus to serve until the close of the war, doing civilian secret service. It was his activity of that character in behalf of the government that led him in November, 1918, to establish The John E. Ferris Intelligence Service, confining its offices to corporation and law firm work exclusively. In this connection the company has built up a splendid clientele and its activities have been of a most important character. Mr. Ferris is also the president of the Milwaukee Dishwasher Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and one of the developers and patentees of the Milwaukee Hydro-lectric Dishwasher.

On the 11th of September, 1901, Mr. Ferris was married to Miss Elizabeth Wylie of Saginaw, Michigan, who received the Ph. B. degree of the University of Michigan. They have become parents of four children: James W., Elizabeth, John E. Jr., and Robert Rodes.

In his political views Mr. Ferris has long been a republican. During the Roosevelt campaign of 1912 he was special correspondent for several newspapers and was the nominee in the same year on the Roosevelt ticket for the office of state senator from the twenty-second Michigan district. He was also one of the delegates from Wisconsin to the St. Louis caucus in May, 1919, when was organized the American Legion, and was made chairman of the committee on organization at that convention. He has been called upon for official duty in various public connections, especially in the different societies to which he belongs. He has been the vice president of the Cornell University Alumni Association of Wisconsin, and is president of the University of Michigan Alumni Association of Wisconsin, having been elected to this position in November, 1921. He was a member of the board of governors of the Optimist Club of Milwaukee and editor of the Optimist Fly Paper and he is a member of the Wisconsin Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. In March, 1921, he was elected second vice president of the International Secret Service Association. He likewise has membership connection with the City Club, with the Milwaukee Association of Commerce, with the Masonic fraternity and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. His membership connections are indicative of his progressive spirit. He is constantly reaching out along broadening lines and each forward step has brought him a wider opportunity, not only for business advancement, but for public service and assistance to his fellowmen and on no occasion has this opportunity been neglected by him.