
Elisha Peyre Ferry (9 August 1825-14 October 1895) was the Republican Governor of the Washington Territory from 26 April 1872 to 1 November 1880 (succeeding Edward S. Salomon and preceding William A. Newell) and Governor of Washington from 11 November 1889 to 11 January 1893 (succeeding Miles Conway Moore and preceding John McGraw).
Biography[]
Elisha Peyre Ferry was born in Monroe County, Michigan in 1825, and he was raised in Waukegan, Illinois. He practiced law in Waukegan for 23 years, and he served as a Whig presidential elector in 1852, as Mayor of Waukegan in 1859, as a Union Army recruiter during the American Civil War, as surveyor general of the Washington territory from 1869 to 1872, as Governor of the Washington Territory from 1872 to 1880, and as Governor from 1889 to 1893. Ferry oversaw the construction of railroads and the reconstruction of Seattle, Ellensburg, and Spokane Falls after they were destroyed by fire; his support for privatizing land in the western parts of the state, as well as his suppression of miner strikes and his support of using low-wage black workers to replace striking white workers, led to critics accusing him of being in the pocket of the corporations. He died in Seattle in 1895.