Henry Ferguson papers

Born in Stamford, Connecticut, Henry Ferguson (1848-1917) attended St. Paul’s School (Concord, NH) and matriculated with the Class of 1868 at Trinity College (Hartford, CT). A member of the Beta Beta Chapter of Psi Upsilon, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during his junior year. In the spring of his sophomore year, Ferguson joined his brother Samuel (Trinity Class of 1857) on a Pacific voyage that ended not only in shipwreck by fire, but also in a 43-day open-boat voyage which brought the Fergusons to Hawaii--a saga later immortalized by Mark Twain. Following graduation from Trinity, Ferguson attended Berkeley Divinity School, completing his theological studies in 1872. He later studied at Bonn, Oxford, and the Sorbonne. Trinity honored Ferguson with a master’s degree in 1875 and an LL.D. in 1900. He was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1872 and a priest a year later. Married to Emma Jane Gardiner in 1873 (with whom he had four children), Ferguson served as rector of parishes in New Hampshire between 1872 and 1880. Following two years of travel, in 1883 Ferguson was appointed Northam Professor of History and Political Science at Trinity College, a position he occupied until 1906. During that time he published Four Periods in the Life of the Church (1885) and Essays in American History (1894). Ferguson then accepted a position as Rector of St. Paul’s School. Returning to Hartford in 1911, he lived there until his death in 1917. A trustee of St. Paul’s School and of Trinity College, Ferguson claimed membership in a range of societies, including the Good Will Club, the Board of Park Commissioners (Hartford), the American Historical Association, the Society of Church History, the Archaeological Institute of America, and the University Club of Boston.