This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: FERRY Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/CIB.2ACI/1218 Message Board Post: FERRY, William Montague, clergyman, born in Granby, Massachusetts, 8 September 1796; died in Grand Haven. Michigan, 30 December 1867. He was graduated at Union College in 1817, studied theology, and went as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church to Michigan in 1821. He established a school for both whites and Indians at Mackinac, and labored successfully for twelve years. His health failing, he was obliged to seek a different employment, and in 1834 purchased with others a tract of land in the Grand River valley, where he founded a settlement and went extensively into the manufacture of lumber. He was one of the first to perceive the future value of the immense pine forests of Michigan, and extended his operations so that in a single year he shipped not less than fifteen million feet of lumber. At his death he left bequests for different benevolent objects, amounting to $120,000. from Appletons Encyclopedia