Rev. Walter L.
Ferris, was the pastor of the Congregational Church of Cherokee, Iowa
in 1892. He was born at Oneida, Knox County, Illinois, July 31, 1832,
and was a son of Lyman B and Harriet A. (Newcomb) Ferris, who were
among the early settlers of that county. He was reared to farm life and
till the age of twenty-one years, he worked for the neighboring farmers
by the day and month, attending the Oneida public school in the winter.
It was not until he had attained his majority that he entered Wheaton
College. There, he found himself all but penniless, but he was filled
with an intense desire to do something in the world, and he set to work
with a fixed determination to go through at all hazards. His hardy farm
life here came to playa. He plowed and husked corn, trimmed hedges,
sawed wood and did anything to earn fifteen cents an hour paid the
students for their labor. In June of 1879, he graduated in the regular
classical course of this institution.
The following
eight months he supplied the pulpit of the Congregational Church of
Wataga, Illinois, teaching at the same time a district school near by
called the “Hard Scrabble School” and justly reputed one of the most
difficult to control. In September, 1880, Mr. Ferris began a course of
theological studies at Union Park Theological Seminary, Chicago. The
first year of his seminary course he filled the pulpit of the
Congregational Church at Prospect Park, Illinois. Then for a year and a
half he was pastor of the Northwest Branch of the First Congregational
church of Chicago. All the while he was learning the practical with the
theological. At the close of his three years’ seminary course, he was
called to the pastorate of the Congregational Church of Dandee,
Illinois. This he considered his first permanent work. Though his
labors had been blessed for nearly four years he would now feel that at
last the time had come when he could devoted all
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his time to his chosen
calling. He spent over six years at Dundee, and
the church was blessed with several revival. During this pastorate, 130
united with the church, many of them being heads of families.
In
May of 1889, Mr. Ferris received a call from the church in Cherokee,
and began work here the first Sabbath in July, 1889. He has ever
been a radical temperance worker, while at Dundee he was repeatedly
called to speak to the various Prohibition clubs, and other temperance
organization in the towns about him. The congregations are large, the
membership united. The Sabbath school is prosperous. The outlook seems
propitious.
Mr. Ferris united in marriage August 9, 1882, to
Miss Harriet McEwen, daughter of Ezera and Mary McEwen. Two children
were born of this union, Millie and Hattie. Mrs. Ferris was called from
earth September 26, 1887. On November 19, 1889, Mr. Ferris was united
in marriage with Miss Maggie Morrison of Storm Lake, Iowa. They have a
large and pleasant home, to which their friends are always made gladly
welcome.
(Source: Excerpts from The Cherokee Weekly Times, Frid, Aug 19, 1892, pg. 1.)
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