Colin Campbell Ferrie (1808 - 1856)

Born 1 May 1808 in Glasgow, Scotland

Ancestors

Husband of Catherine (Beasley) Ferrie — married 1 Dec 1830 in Burlington Heights, Ontario, Canada

Died 9 Nov 1856 at age 48 in Hamilton, Wentworth, Canada West

Biography

Colin Ferrie is Notable.

Colin Ferrie is/was a significant Ontarian .

Colin Campbell Ferrie was baptized May 1808 in Glasgow. He arrived in Montreal in 1824 with a partner William Cormack to establish the wholesale and forwarding firm of Ferrie, Cormack and Company. Colin’s father was the lead partner. The partnership failed and in 1829, Colin’s father agreed to supply the wholesale and retail store established by his sons Colin and Adam in the boom town of Hamilton under the name of Colin Ferrie and Company.

On December 1st 1830 he married Catherine Priscilla Beasley, daughter of Col. Richard Beasley.^[1] Colin gave her as a wedding present “Westlawn”, a £7,000 estate. Between 1830 and 1833 branches of the Hamilton store were set up at Brantford, Preston (Cambridge), Nelson (Burlington), Dundas, and Waterloo, centres which figured prominently in the rapid expansion of Hamilton’s commercial hinterland. Colin Ferrie’s firm supplied rural merchants who, lacking sufficient credit, were unable to buy directly from forwarding companies in Montreal. Unpaid debts became a major problem. Colin sought to stabilize Hamilton-based trade by promoting local transportation facilities and financial institutions. He joined other district businessmen in a petition for a chartered bank at Hamilton which resulted in the incorporation of the Gore Bank two years later. Colin became its president in 1839 and held the position until his death.

Throughout the 1830s Colin’s mercantile, legal, and civic interests pervaded Hamilton. He occupied many local public offices. During the cholera epidemic of 1832 he chaired the board of health and a year later was a member of the town’s first board of police. In 1839 he helped to organize the Hamilton and Gore Mechanics’ Institute and the local St Andrew’s Society. He represented Hamilton in the House of Assembly until 1841. Despite Colin’s many positions, his affluence, prestige, and confidence were drastically reduced by the collapse brought on by this financial crisis. He nevertheless survived the depression of 1837, but never quite regained his early mercantile paramountcy. During the 1840s Ferrie turned to banking and real estate speculation on a major scale. The struggling Gore Bank required his increasing attention. For several years he withdrew from public life in order to meet his obligations, but gradually, as his business recovered, he re-entered civic affairs. He was a founding member of the Hamilton board of trade in 1845 and two years later became first mayor of the newly incorporated city of Hamilton. During his year in office he concentrated on fiscal affairs. The financial crisis of 1848–50 precipitated Ferrie’s final withdrawal from public life to struggle with debt. In spite of commercial problems Colin and his father directed the reorganization and expansion of the family business in 1848. In November 1856, after a meeting with directors of the Gore Bank, he collapsed and on November 9th died of “an enlargement of the heart.”

In 1953 Colin and John Ferrie and Co, were shown on a tax schedule for "vacant land at Hughson and Main"^[2]

A street in Hamilton is named after Mayor Colin Ferrie.^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ Colonial Advocate, York Dec 1828- Oct 1834. Ancestry.com. Marriage Notices of Ontario 1813-1854 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data:Reid, William D. Marriage Notices of Ontario [1813-1854]. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000.
2. ↑ "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6ZNL-9LD6 : 20 July 2021), Colin Ferrie, 1853.
3. ↑ The Hamilton Spectator, Ferrie Street

• Extracted from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online. Colin Campbell Ferrie

• "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVV9-1S7S : 10 September 2021), Colin Campbell Ferrie, ; Burial, Hamilton, Hamilton Municipality, Ontario, Canada, Hamilton Cemetery; citing record ID 8658426, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

• Library and Archives Canada, Census of 1851, Canada West, Hamilton, St. Mary, entry for Colin C. Ferrie, Item Number: 470391.