Aug 20, 2010
The family legend has it that he was born in Ireland, perhaps somewhere near Belfast, and that as a rebellious teenager, he came home late one night to find the door locked. There is no mention of alcohol being involved, but his subsequent behaviour seems to suggest that it might have been. He went up the hill behind the house and dislodged a huge boulder which he set rolling down the hill and through the locked door. He didn't go down to observe the reaction in the house, but set off for the port and took ship to Australia.
At Ballarat he seems to have done well, presumably at the diggings, for my grandmother used to boast that at the age of twenty-one he had a wife and a child and a thousand pounds in the bank. At some stage he returned to Ireland and married a protestant girl called Eliza Ann MacIntyre, in County Derry, and had two children, Margaret, (Maggie) born 1853, and Annabella Graham, (my grandmother), born 1859 at Ballymena. After that he seems to have come out to the West Coast, for his son, Stuart Henry, was born at No Town on 19 January, 1874. By 1881 he appears to have been running a store at Capleston, (also known as Boatman's) for he was involved in a public meeting there on November 24, appealing to the Commissioner of Telegraph for the establishment of a telegraph office at Capleston. On the thirtieth of May that year he became a double grandfather when his daughter, Maggie produced a daughter, Mignon, (really Stella Grace) and his daughter Annabella produced daughter Pearl (really Margaret Jane, but known as Margaret Frances until she registered for Training College when she found out her father, who was a postmaster, had registered her as Margaret Jane in honour of his mother). Very confusing!
In August 1883 he applied to the wardens court for two business sites at Boatman's and also to have objected, successfully, to a similar application by a Mr C Cassler.
In the same month the Grey River Argus published an appreciation by the widow Devery of his having collected a subscription of 9 pounds and 14s for herself and the children, for which returned her heartfelt thanks. Alcoholism and high moral principles seem to have characterised him throughout his life. 1884 saw him fined in the Magistrate's Court 20 shillings for drunkenness, which he admitted, and at the same session he was involved in an interesting case in which his son-in-law, Samuel Barr, accused him of attempting to breach a prohibition order by trying to buy a drink from one William B Archer. However, on the evidence of a Mr Henry Kassler, a bootmaker at Boatman's, who was in Archer's on the evening in question, Mr Ferris had only come in asking for change for a pound. He did not see Mr Ferris have anything to drink, but he may have told someone Ferris had had a whisky, but if he did he was only passing on what he had been told.
However Samuel Barr gave evidence that on that night he had seen both Kessler and Ferris coming from the direction of Archers both the worse for drink. "On the following day Kessler told me they had had a "booze" at Archer's on the previous night. I told him I would lay an information against Archer and he advised me to let it slip this time."
Daniel Ferris was called , but before entering the witness box he asked the Court whether he had to give evidence as he objected to do so.
His Worship said he had been called and would have to go into the box.
Witness said with all due respect to the Court he should have to refuse to do so.
His Worship said he would have to be locked up if he refused. He need not say anything to incriminate himself, but he must give evidence.
Witness said it was placing him in the position of an informer for him to ask Mr Archer to serve him, and if he complied, to now turn round and give evidence against him to his detriment, would place himself in a most contemptible light. Under these circumstances he would refuse to enter the box and would take the consequences.
His Worship said he had nothing to do with these matters. The order of the Court would have to be obeyed, otherwise the witness would have to take the consequences.
The witness said he would take the consequences.
The witness was sentenced to seven days' imprisonment.
John Coglan: "I am acquainted with Mr Ferris. On April 20th last, I was coming from my dinner, and when passing Archer's Ferris was standing on the verandah. I had some business with Mr Archer. Ferris wanted a drink and Archer refused to serve him, saying he could have a drink out of the creek. Ferris said the creek was polluted. Archer then said he would give Ferris a glass of Belfast ginger ale, and he asked me to go inside and see that he did not serve any intoxicating liquor. I went in and we both had a drink of ginger ale. I drank out of the same bottle as Ferris. Archer asked me to have a drink of beer, and I refused. I have never told anybody that Ferris had liquor in Archer's on the day in question. I never spoke to anybody on the subject of this case until today."
Samuel Barr: "Coglan told me yesterday that Ferris had had liquor in Archer's on the day in question. Brandy bottles found in Ferris' bedroom I believe came from Archer's; nobody in the district has any bottles like them."
Information dismissed with costs 27/- and 29/- to Coglan, and one guinea professional fee.
In 1899 they were still living at Boatman's when my father, at the age of four, sometimes stayed with them. He too remembers Daniel Ferris's kindness, and his drunkenness. He had a fine little mare that drew his trap, and he was very fond of it, always grooming it and caring for it. But when he got drunk in Reefton on a Saturday night he would flog it all the way home, even to the extent of overturning the trap on at least one occasion. Eliza, his wife, deplored such excesses, and mentioned to a neighbour, "There's an old rooster been drinkin' dirty water again." Dad asked why she didn't cut its head off.
At some stage Dad seems to have set fire to a hillside of bracken at Boatman's and destroyed a stack of railways sleepers at the top of the hill. Old Daniel took him aside and said "We know something about it, don't we. But we won't tell anyone, will we."
What a gracious old man.