Representative Charles Goadsby Ferris

Charles Goadsby Ferris (ca. 1796 – June 4, 1848) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. Representative from New York in two non-consecutive terms, from 1834 to 1835 and from 1841 to 1843. He was born at “The Homestead” in Throggs Neck, then a rural area and now a neighborhood in the Bronx, New York. His father, Edward Ferris, was long an Inspector of Flour in New York and one of the founders of the Tammany Society, amassing a large fortune that he left to his children, including Charles and his brother, Dr. Floyd T. Ferris, a physician. His mother, Elizabeth Goadsby Ferris (d. 1825), was the daughter of Sir Thomas Goadsby of England, linking the family to English gentry. Ferris’s sister, Caroline Adelia Ferris, later married Captain John W. Richardson, reflecting the family’s social connections in New York.

Ferris received a limited formal education in his youth but pursued advanced study sufficient to gain admission to Columbia University. In 1816, he received a Master of Arts degree from Columbia, an achievement that was notable for a man of his relatively modest early schooling. After completing his studies, he read law and was admitted to the bar, beginning a legal career in New York City. His practice placed him in the commercial and political center of the state, where he became involved in local Democratic politics and the civic life of the growing metropolis.

Establishing himself as an attorney, Ferris practiced law in New York City and soon moved into municipal public service. He served as a member of the New York City Board of Aldermen in 1832 and 1833, a period when the city was expanding rapidly and confronting issues of urban governance, infrastructure, and public health. His role as an alderman provided him with experience in legislative deliberation and constituent representation, and it helped build the political base that would support his later bids for national office.

Ferris entered Congress during a turbulent era in American politics. He was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Representative Dudley Selden, and he served from December 1, 1834, to March 3, 1835. During this first term, he sat as a member of the broader Jacksonian coalition that supported President Andrew Jackson’s policies, and he participated in the legislative process at a time marked by debates over banking, internal improvements, and federal authority. Contemporary accounts also report that in 1837, during Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s (later Napoleon III) tour of New York, Ferris introduced him to President John Tyler, reflecting Ferris’s presence in the social and political circles that intersected with international visitors.

After several years out of federal office, Ferris returned to the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-seventh Congress and served from March 4, 1841, until March 3, 1843. Representing New York during a period of economic adjustment following the Panic of 1837 and amid intense partisan conflict between Whigs and Democrats, Ferris again contributed to the legislative process and represented the interests of his constituents. He was widely credited as being largely instrumental in securing an appropriation through Congress to build the first telegraph line, an early federal endorsement of what would become a transformative communications technology. His two non-consecutive terms thus spanned key developments in the nation’s political and technological history.

Following his second term in Congress, Ferris remained active in public affairs. President John Tyler appointed him Collector of the Port of New York, one of the most significant and lucrative federal posts in the country, given the volume of customs revenue that passed through the harbor. However, his nomination was rejected by the United States Senate, and Cornelius P. Van Ness ultimately served in the position instead. Despite this setback, Ferris remained a man of substantial means; by 1845 he was reportedly worth $200,000, a sum roughly equivalent to $6.39 million in 2024, reflecting both his inheritance and his own professional and political success.

In his personal life, Ferris married Catherine Youngs. The couple had one daughter, whom they named after his only sister, Caroline Adelia Ferris. Their daughter later married Glover Clapham in 1850, and following his death she remarried Samuel Lewis, continuing the family’s connections within New York society. Ferris’s family relationships, including his ties to the Tammany Society through his father and to English lineage through his mother, framed his identity within both American political culture and transatlantic social networks.

Charles Goadsby Ferris died in New York City on June 4, 1848. His career as a lawyer, municipal official, and two-term member of the House of Representatives, combined with his role in advancing early telegraph infrastructure and his association with prominent political figures of his day, situates him within the broader narrative of New York’s and the nation’s political development in the first half of the nineteenth century.