Series 4 Henry C. Ferris Family Papers

Like his older brother, Henry Ferris began his career as a printer. He was apprenticed in the shop of Howard M. Jenkins and Wilmer Atkinson in Wilmington. In 1877 he went into business with Francis Ferris under the name Ferris Brothers. Following the death of his older brother, Henry assumed the leadership role in the Ferris Brothers printing company with his younger brother, Alfred, as partner. After a fire in the Wilmington shop, they moved the business to Philadelphia in 1889 where Henry began to work in advertising. He sold the printing business to Alfred and spent the rest of his career in advertising and editing. He worked for Gimbels and John Wanamaker, and from 1915-1919 he was the editor of Friends Intelligencer . He also worked with the Hamilton Loan Society and late in life, enjoyed genealogy. A life-long Quaker and pacifist, he was devoted to Quaker concerns and history.

As a young man, Henry Ferris enjoyed a close circle of friendship with the Smyth, Cooper, and Paxson families of Philadelphia whom he visited often. In 1884, he began to court Elizabeth Ellis Masters, a member of Muncy Monthly Meeting. They were married in April 1885. They had two children, Frances Canby Ferris, long-time principal of the Friends School in Haverford, and Henry Francis, Jr., who married and had four children.

Henry Ferris continued his grandfather, Benjamin Ferris's interest in genealogy and preserving the family's documents and history. He sold the family papers he had compiled to Friends Historical Library in 1950. Both he and his daughter, Frances C. Ferris, were active in sorting the papers, and Frances subsequently volunteered to work with collection and donated additional papers. Printing business in Wilmington until 1886 when he moved to Philadelphia and became a publisher.