The Winterthur Library

 The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum

5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, Delaware  19735

Telephone: 302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883

 

 

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION

 

Creator:         Ferris, Benjamin 1780-1867                           

Title:               Exercise Book and Drawings

Dates:             1792-1845

Call No.:         Col. 350

Acc. No.:        65x539.1-.14

Quantity:        14 items

Location:        34 K 5

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

 

Benjamin Ferris (1780-1867) was a descendent of an English family that emigrated from Reading, England, and settled at Groton, near Boston, Massachusetts.  It has been reported that Samuel Ferris, ancestor of Benjamin, removed to New Milford, Connecticut, around 1692, although another source reports that the immigrant was Samuel’s son Zachariah, who was born in Reading, England, settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, but became a farmer in Groton.  In any case, a descendant of these men, Ziba Ferris (1743-1794), was born in New Milford, Connecticut, but became a cabinetmaker in Wilmington, Delaware.  Ziba’s son Benjamin Ferris, was born August 7, 1780, in a house at the corner of Third and Shipley Streets in Wilmington.  At the age of 14 Benjamin went to Philadelphia where he learned the business of watchmaking, which he followed there until 1813.  He then returned to Wilmington, where he spent the rest of his life.  He married twice, first Frances (Fanny) Canby and then Hannah Gibbons, and he had several children.   

 

Ferris read extensively on religious and historical subjects and wrote on the early settlement and history of Wilmington.  Among other titles, he wrote History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware, published by Wilson and Heald of Wilmington in 1846, Truth Advocated in Letters Addressed to the Presbyterians, published by Joseph Bakestraw in Philadelphia in 1822, and A Sketch of the Proceedings, Wilmington, published posthumously by the Historical Society of Delaware a century after his death.

 

Interested in the welfare of Indians, Ferris was a member of a Quaker commission (1839) created to investigate the case of the rights of the Seneca Indians to lands in New York State.  He and the commission were successful in preventing the Indians from being defrauded by the United States government.  Ferris was also a member of the Board of Commissioners of what is now the Lancaster Pike.

 

From 1835 until he was disabled by disease at age 76, Ferris spent considerable time in literary pursuits and in duties connected with the Society of Friends.  He died on November 9, 1867, at 87 years of age.

 

 

SCOPE AND CONTENT

 

This collection consists of Ferris' exercise book in business mathematics along with 13 miscellaneous drawings attributed to Ferris.  The exercise book contains practice cases, including problems computing interest, compound interest, brokerage, rebate or discount, equation of payments, loss and gain, fellowships, exchange, single rule of three, double rule of three, medial, allegation, alternate of single and double position, arithmetical progression, and barter.  The last page contains sketches of a house, face, drums, stairs, birds, barrels, and a sailboat.  There are grotesque doodles on the inside cover and calligraphic flourishes throughout.      

 

The majority of the drawings are of Delaware structures, including Swede's Church, a Brandywine schoolhouse, Friends Old Meeting House, a brick wall, and an anonymous church and churchyard.  Some of these illustrations were published in Ferris' History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware in 1846.  Other sketches depict drafting instruments, houses, and a tetra-prostyle building of the Doric order.

 

 

ORGANIZATION

           

The items are arranged in accession number order.

 

 

LANGUAGE OF MATERIALS

 

The materials are in English.

 

 

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS

 

Collection is open to the public.  Copyright restrictions may apply.

 

 

PROVENANCE

           

Transferred from the museum collection.

 

 

RELATED MATERIALS

 

The museum possesses an oil portrait of Ferris and silhouettes that he did.

A photograph of Ferris’ drawing of the Friends’ Meeting House in Wilmington is in DAPC.  Another sketch of the same subject, drawn by Ziba Ferris, is also in DAPC; presumably this Ziba Ferris is the brother of Benjamin Ferris.

 

 

ACCESS POINTS

 

Topics:

            Mathematics - Problems, exercises, etc.

            Accounting - Study and teaching.

            Pen drawing.

            Architecture - Delaware - Wilmington.

            Calligraphy - Specimens.

            Tools - Pictorial works.

            Dwellings - Pictorial works.

            Church architecture - Delaware - Wilmington.

            Church buildings - Pictorial works.

Decorative paper - Specimens.

            Copy-books.

            Instructional materials.

            Drawings.

 

 

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

 

Location: 34 K 5

 

 

 

65x539.1.  Benjamin Ferris' work book in business mathematics.  1792-1794:

 

            Volume consists of "practice cases" including problems on the computation of: interest, commission or provision, compound interest, brokerage, rebate or discount, equation of payments, loss and gain, fellowships, exchange, single rule of three, double rule of three, allegation, medial, allegation alternate of single and double position, arithmetical progression, and barter.  The first pages of the volume are missing, and the volume opens with “Practice Case the 3rd, 1792.”

 

            On the page headed Exchange, the 23rd of 10th mo 1792 is found a tiny sketch of a church, a school house with a large American flag, and a path leading to an outhouse.  The last pages contains sketches of a house, face, drums, spoon, man on stairs, birds, barrel, a portrait labeled Angelina Infanta, and a sailboat.  There are grotesque doodles on the inside cover and calligraphic flourishes throughout.  Written inside back cover: Benjamin Ferriss’s Book, 1794.

 

            The boards are covered with a decorative embossed paper.  The front cover is detached.

 

            Museum accession number 1965.3050.

 

 

65x539.2-14.  Miscellaneous drawings by Benjamin Ferris:

 

            .2         Half of a paper protractor inscribed with half of an animal labeled Ursa and  Benjami/ 6 mo 17 d/ Wilmi.

 

            .3         A single page listing “articles for which accounts should be returned on settlement,” wages, petty expenses, and travelling expensives for the year 1816. Ink on paper.

                                    Among the articles listed are vise tools, chest, glue pot, grindstone, lamps, and wrenches.  The list of wages does not give names, just amounts.  The travelling expenses lists trips to Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Castle, Wilmington, and Bohemia (undoubtedly a place in Maryland).

 

                                    On back: The letters D and F written in pencil, and two very rough pencil sketches of buildings.

 

            .4         Page from a small book including drawings of two houses, a church, and buildings on  a city lot (church, house, workshop), words in calligraphic style (mansion, Carrat, house, Benjamin), arithmetic computations, and the dates 1815, 1819, 1820.   One memo is headed “family and private concerns, 5 mo 8th 1815,” and mentions Merrit Canby and an exchange of watches.  [Merrit Canby was brother-in-law of Benjamin Ferris.]  The names John McClurg, J. Wollaston, and Samuel Kendall are also written on the paper.  Ink and pencil on paper. 

 

            .5         Drawing of Swedes Church, Wilmington, Delaware.  Ink on cardboard, with trees and tombstones lightly sketched in pencil.  It was drawn in 1845 and published in Ferris' History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware.

 

            .6         Sketch of Old Swedes Church, in pencil on paper, including tombstones in the churchyard and trees behind the building.

 

            .7         Perspective drawing of "steeple house or bellfry" of Brandywine School house.  The belfry includes a weathervane, a bell, and a clock.  With note:  "please charge Elisha Huxley with the costs of the elevation and architectural drawings.” 

                                    On back:  “John W. Tatum & Mary Canby, 10th of sixth month 1824, John and Hannah Tatum, Gloucester, Robert Ocheltree, near Bear Tavern, direct to Christiana Bridge, Post Office Loan 12 or 14.00."  Also a partial sketch of a steeple or belfry, and two hands, one holding what appears to be a sword.

                                    [On June 10, 1824, John W. Tatum, son of John and Hannah Tatum of Gloucester County, New Jersey, married Mary Canby, daughter of Samuel and Frances Canby.  They married in Wilmington.]

 

            .8         Perspective sketch of rear view of church and churchyard, with houses beyond, and some tombstones around the church.  The steeple is different from that on Old Swedes, but this is perhaps another church in Wilmington.  Pencil and ink on paper.

 

            .9         Perspective drawing of Friends Old Meeting House, Wilmington, Delaware, as it stood in 1817 just before demolition.  Ink on paper.  It was published in his book History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware.

    

            .10       Elevation drawing of a building set into a wall, with a recessed arch on one side and a gate way with a door on the other; the wall abuts a brick house next door.  (Although someone identified this as the First Presbyterian Meeting House, Wilmington, Delaware, founded in 1740, in fact this looks nothing like that church, nor does it look like a church at all.)  Scale, dimensions, and an estimate of the number of bricks used or needed.  Ink on paper.         

                                    Reverse:  Floor plan drawing, with door, windows, stairs, and a fireplace.  Ink on paper. 

 

            .11       Perspective ink and wash drawing of the Tower of the Winds, topped with a mermaid weathervane, in a landscape.

 

            .12       Elevation drawing of a tetra-prostyle building of the Doric order.  Ink and wash on paper.

 

            .13       Perspective drawing of a drafting instrument, with a fly to give perspective.  Ink, pencil, and wash on paper.  On back: mathematical calculations.

 

            .14       perspective drawing of an unknown instrument.  Ink and wash on paper.

                        On back: a rough sketch and the words “fifty dollars.”