The story of the Ferns family of Fern Valley, Oregon begins in Ireland in 1775, at the start of the American Revolution. William Ferns Sr. was born in the village of Derrvona, County Cavan, in the north central part of Ireland to unknown parents. He married Charlotte Morton and raised a family of 5 boys. The eldest, also a William was born In 1809. William Jr. left Ireland during the last part of the Irish Potato Famine, arriving in New Orleans in early 1852.  Some of his other brothers left for Australia at about the same time.

William Ferns, b. 1809, Cavan Ireland

A family legend claims that William Jr. was in pursuit of the landlord’s daughter, Jane Doonan, who was from neighboring Fermanagh County. She had been sent to America with her brothers, arriving in New Orleans in 1849 aboard the Margaret. William quickly made his way to Davenport, Iowa where he wed Jane Doonan in April 1852. William was considerably older (43) than Jane (31) when they married, so it’s possible that Jane was his 2nd wife. By 1860 the Ferns family and several Doonan families had made their way to Bowling, Rockport County, Illinois, acquiring farms amidst a largely Irish farming community.  William Ferns died 1866, leaving behind his widow Jane and 10 young children. Jane and the children moved to the area of What Chere, Iowa sometime after 1870.

Jane Doonan, b. 1821, County Fermanagh, Ireland

The 3rd William, William Thomas Ferns was born in Illinois in 1855. In 1884 he married Amelia Buckley Carver of Pleasant Grove, Iowa. Amelia was a daughter of John Waterman Carter and Eliza Marie Nutting and a descendant of a number of prominent colonial New England families.

Amelia Buckley Carver and William Thomas Ferns

It was the Carver family that first acquired the farm and ranchlands in the small valley of southwestern Oregon now known as Fern Valley. The beginning to the story of how the Carver family made their way west lies in the Revolutionary War. Amelia’s mother Eliza Marie was a member of the Nutting family, which included a number of Patriot soldiers from the region west of Boston that had answered to the call to arms at Lexington. Most notable was Daniel Nutting who was member of the Massachusetts militia that played a prominent role in the battle of Bunker Hill. Daniel was one of the men that repulsed the first two British attacks on the central redoubt and, fortunately for us, his descendants, successfully fled after running out of ammunition during the 3rd British bayonet assault. 

Amelia’s father John Waterman Carver was a member of the Carver family of Maine and included a number of old sea-faring families from the early days of Plymouth Colony, including three Mayflower families (Chilton, Doty and Warren). The Carver family had divided loyalties during the Revolutionary War. John’s great grandfather Captain Caleb Carver owned a sailing vessel that aided the British at Boston during the battle of Bunker Hill. Captain Caleb was banished from Massachusetts and left with his family for Halifax, Nova Scotia with the British forces following Washington’s siege of Boston. Two of Caleb’s sons, Caleb Jr. and Ebenezer returned to New England following the war and settled in the Fox Islands of Maine. Ebenezer married Abigail Waterman, a daughter of Captain Joseph Waterman and Deborah Winslow. Captain Joseph was a ship owner who had received a land grant in the Fox Islands in recognition of his service on behalf of the Patriot cause during the Revolution. 

The son of Ebenezer Carver, Ebenezer Waterman Carver was the pioneer who slowly made his way west from the coastal islands of Maine to the Rogue Valley of southwest Oregon. His father drowned in 1804, leaving the pregnant widow Abigail in her father Captain Joseph’s household. The youuth remained with his mother following Captain Joseph’s death in 1818.  Ebenezer Waterman Carver married the older Mary Stinson, a daughter of Maine pioneer Ephraim Stinson of Stinson’s Island some time before 1827. Four children, Mary, Abigail, John Waterman and Asher, were born to the couple between 1828 and 1834. The family’s destiny was forever changed in 1838, when noted Mormon missionary Wilford Woodruff arrived in the Fox Islands. Although the Carver family has long denied ever being Mormons, Wilford Woodruff’s Leaves of My Journal tells a different story: “ON the 28th of March I received a letter from Zion, requesting me to counsel the Saints I had baptized to sell their property and gather up to Zion. 

About this time the Lord was manifesting Himself upon the Islands in various ways, by dreams, visions, healings, signs and wonders. I will relate one peculiar circumstance of this kind that occurred. Mr. Ebenezer Carver had been investigating our doctrines for quite a length of time, and, having a great desire to know the truth of our religion, he walked to the sea shore, wishing that he might have some manifestation in proof of its truth. The passage of scripture came to his mind that there would be no sign given lt but the sign of the prophet Jonas,” and while this thought was in his mind a large fish arose to the top of the water, a distance from him in the sea, and suddenly sank out of sight. He much desired to see it again, and soon it arose to the top of the water, accompanied by another fish of about the same size, and one of them swam on the water in a straight line towards Mr. Carver as he stood upon the shore. It came as near to him as the water would permit, and then stopped and gazed at him with a penetrating eye, as though it had a message for him. It then returned to its mate in the ocean and swam out of sight. Mr. Carver retraced his steps homeward, meditating upon the scene and the wonderful condescension of the Lord. It is proper to remark that this was at a season of the year when fish of that size are never known upon those shores or seas, and they are never, at any season, known to come ashore as in the case mentioned. Mr. Carver was convinced that it was intended by the Lord as a sign to him. Two days after this event I visited Mr. Carver at his house, and found his wife confined to her bed with a fever, and she requested me to administer to her. I placed my hands upon her head, the power of God rested upon me, and I commanded her in the name of Jesus Christ to arise and walk. She arose and was healed from that instant, and she walked down to the sea and I baptized her in the same place where the fish visited her husband. I confirmed her there, and she was filled with the Holy Ghost and returned to her home rejoicing…. On the 6th of April I held a meeting at Brother Ebenezer Carver’s, and, though the hearts of the wicked were stirred up in bitterness against me, the Spirit of God was with me, and at the close of the meeting I baptized three persons. One of these was Mrs. Abigail Carver, the mother of Ebenezer Carver, who was seventy years of age and in poor health. She had not so much as visited a neighbor’s house for six years, but upon this occasion she walked with boldness to the sea shore and I baptized her, and she returned rejoicing.” 

Ebenezer Waterman Carver’s family was part of the caravan that followed Wilford Woodruff to the Mormon settlements in the Midwest, arriving in the then Wisconsin Territory. Hearing of the violent troubles that the Mormons were having in Missouri, the group from Maine stopped in Illinois in 1838. The Carver family moved sometime between 1840 and 1845 to the Hickory Grove area of Iowa. Carver family stories that the two boys, John Waterman and Asher, were meat hunters for the Mormon wagon train and for John Fremont and Kit Carson are suspect. Asher (b. 1834) would have only been 12 years old when Fremont and Carver were last together in 1846. John Waterman (b. 1831) and Asher were however both large men, one being 6’5” and the other 6’7” and may well have been among the number of young boys and men who traveled in 1847 with the first Mormon wagon trains to Salt Lake City. 

In 1858 John Waterman Carver married Eliza Maria Nutting. The Nutting family had moved west from eastern New York to Hickory Grove, Iowa sometime between 1850 and 1856. During the Civil War, Mary’s niece Mary Cooper and her family joined the Carver family in Iowa. Her husband Samuel Cooper was a member of the Union army who never returned, possibly dying in a Confederate prison camp.  The journey to Oregon began in January, 1866 when John Waterman Carver’s mother Mary died. His father Ebenezer Waterman Carver (62) married Mary Cooper (37) in December, 1866. Family stories note that Ebenezer’s older children disapproved of the marriage, understandable considering that Mary Cooper, being a daughter of Ephraim Stimson, was their 1st cousin, a niece of their mother Mary. 

Ebenezer Waterman Carver and his new family, consisting of Mary and her two sons Herbert and Elbert and daughter Olive, left for Oregon in 1867 and settled in the Eden Precinct east of Phoenix, Oregon. The younger Mary’s father, Ephraim Stinson came west about the same time, bringing with him sons Isaac Packard and Thomas, settling just northeast of Roxy Anne near Dry Creek. By 1872 Ebenezer Waterman Carver had acquired more than 1,000 acres of land.  In 1873 a son, Ebenezer Waterman Carver Jr. ‘young Eb’ was born. Mary died in September, 1876, leaving behind the 71 year old widow ‘old Eb’, a 3 year old son and an older married stepson Herbert Cooper living with his own wife and family in the Eden Precinct. Mary’s sons Herbert and Elbert both married nieces of Elizabeth McCollum, the wife of their neighbor Champion Payne. 

Old Eb wrote a will in 1891 that left $50 apiece to his older children (Mary Sloper, Abigail Wells, John Waterman Carver and Asher Carver. He named his stepson Herbert Cooper as executor and left all of his 1,000 acres to young Eb, with the provision that Eb was to receive the south ½ when he reached the age of 25 and the remainder when young Eb reached the age of 30. Old Eb also appointed Herbert as young Eb’s guardian, directing Herbert to “see that he be properly provided for clothing and schooling and other necessaries of life, to make him happy, and I desire that he shall be trained up to lead a moral life and thereby be a worthy citizen of the commonwealth.” When old Eb died in 1896, young Eb was 23 and not yet old enough to receive property under the terms of the will. Herbert was unable to find any assets outside of land needed to pay the estate’s debts, young Eb claiming all of the personal property to be his. Herbert needed to borrow money to just to pay for old Eb’s coffin. The estate had begun to go downhill earlier in 1893, when young Eb turned 20 and some property was sold to pay debts. Old Eb began borrowing money and taxes went unpaid in 1894 and 1895. Young Eb was evidently feeling his oats at this time. He was married at the point of a shotgun in 1894, after getting a local girl (Lillian Reames) pregnant. Young Eb apparently never lived with his wife and young child, the future mayor of Phoenix, Faye Carver.

By the end of 1897 the estate’s executor Herbert Cooper had obtained the court’s permission to sell the land in order to pay off the debts. Brothers John Waterman Carver and Asher Carver stepped in and settled the estate by paying all outstanding debts ($4,571.05) in a private sale, acquiring a property valued at $9,680.86. Herbert received $313.62 for his tenure as executor while young Eb apparently never got a dime. 

William Thomas Ferns bought the land from Amelia’s father and uncle in 1898.  By the time they arrived in the valley, Amelia’s Stinson cousins had moved to the Eagle Point and Klamath Falls areas. Amelia’s sister Edith and her husband Jonas Hayman came west sometime between 1910 and 1920. One of their brothers, Arthur Carver was visiting the sisters when he died in Grants Pass in 1936. One of Amelia’s cousins, Ebenezer Sloper, lived in the Rogue Valley for a short time while the Carver estate was being settled.

William Thomas, having tuberculosis, had been advised by a doctor to move west to a dryer climate. The cold damp climate of the Rogue Valley proved fatal. William Thomas Ferns died in March, 1899, leaving behind the widow Amelia Buckley Carver and a family consisting of five boys and two girls.  A Ferns family story tells of how the older brothers William and Mark talked their mother Amelia into staying on the ranch while they were making their way to the train station to return to Iowa. So they stayed; Amelia, William John, Jennie Alice, James Mark, Ralph Lovell, Charles Thomas, Eliza Edith and Archie Louis, beginning the saga of the Ferns of Ferns Valley.