Land is the Cry!: Warren Angus Ferris, Pioneer Texas Surveyor and Founder of Dallas County Page: Front Inside
xv, 247 p. : ill., ports ; 24 cm. + 1 map (b&w ; 52 x 32 cm., folded to 23 cm.)View a full description of this book.
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and Is the Cry! is the fascinat-
ing story of Warren Ferris, a
New York Yankee who
deserves to be remembered as the "Father of
Dallas County." Except for a twist of fate,
Dallas, Texas, would have been named
"Warwick" by its two founders, surveyor
Ferris and land speculator William P. King.
Historian A. C. Greene calls Warren Ferris
the most "unappreciated figure in Dallas his-
tory." But Ferris has more than regional sig-
nificance, for his remarkable story encom-
passes three arenas: the Niagara frontier of
western New York, the fur-trading country
of the Rocky Mountains, and frontier north-
east Texas during the years of the Republic.
Ferris merited fame even before he
came to Texas in 1837. While working as a
trapper and fur trader in the Rocky
Mountains for six years, Ferris kept a diary
of his adventures. This journal, the classic
Life in the Rocky Mountains, accompanied by
a map that he drew from memory, provided
a unique and valuable picture of trapper and
Indian life in the 183os. Ferris also gave the
public its first written description of
Yellowstone's amazing geysers. As a business-
man seeking to become a landowner, fur-
trader Ferris followed his brother Charles to
Texas the year after the Texas Revolution. He
became the official surveyor for
Nacogdoches County, which then included
much of northeast Texas west to the Trinity
River. Although his brother returned to their
hometown of Buffalo, New York, Warren
Ferris spent another thirty-five years of his
eventful life in Texas.
Surveying at the Three Forks of the
Trinity in 1839, Ferris entered the area before
John Neely Bryan, the traditionally recog-
nized founder of Dallas, and Ferris's surveys
determined the line of streets and roads that
shaped the future county. In 1847, Ferris
(Continued on back flap)I
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Starling, Susanne. Land is the Cry!: Warren Angus Ferris, Pioneer Texas Surveyor and Founder of Dallas County, book, 1998; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296836/m1/2/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.