"Barlow Ferguson, senior member of the law firm of Ferguson and Cannon. Among the well-known and able attorneys of Salt Lake City the career of Barlow Ferguson is one that may well furnish both diversion and instruction to the reader of these pages. A native son of Utah, born and reared amid the inspiring associations to be found in this western country, where the very air makes one's pulse beat and the brain clearer, he early took up the study of the law and began active practice in his young manhood, practicing alone for some time and forming his present partnership about 1892. He is alert and wide-awake, level-headed and his uniform success in handling big cases has brought him a large volume of valuable business, and he is at this time attorney for the leading mercantile and manufacturing estabments of this State.

Mr. Ferguson was born in Salt Lake City on December 5, 1859, and is the son of General James Ferguson and Lucy (Nutting) Ferguson. The father was born in Belfast, Antrim, Ireland, February 23, 1828, remaining there until thirteen years of age, when he went to Liverpool, and there remained until he reached manhood. He was a self-taught man, never having attended school after he was nine years of age. In Liverpool he first heard the doctrines of Mormonism preached, and being convinced of the truth of that religion, was baptized into the Church and came to America in 1847, at the age of nineteen years. He was among those who started for Utah in 1847. He was Adjutant-General of the Utah Militia, and upon the call coming for volunteers for the war against Mexico, was one of the first to volunteer his services, and became a Sergeant-Major in the Mormon Battalion [under Captain James Brown Company "C"]. He made the entire trip across the deserts of Colorado and Mexico with his company, suffering untold privations and hardships, and when the Battalion was divided in New Mexico, was among those who went on to California to the relief of General Kearney. He came to Salt Lake with his company in 1849. He took up the study of the law, practicing up to the time of his death in 1863. He was also prominently identified with the newspaper life of Salt Lake City, establishing the Mountaineer, having associated with him Seth M. Blair, and continued to publish that paper up to a few years previous to his demise. Locally he had quite a reputation as an actor in the early days of Salt Lake City. He took a leading part in all the affairs of the city during his life time, and was well known and highly esteemed. He died at the age of thirty-five years. He married in San Francisco to Miss Lucy Nutting, the mother of our subject. She was the mother of five children. Mrs. Ferguson, then Miss Nutting, at her home in Hatfield, Massachusetts, joined the Mormon Church in 1846. Then a lone girl at the age of twenty-one, left her parents, relatives and friends, took passage on the ship Brooklyn, a sailing vessel, and after a six­months' perilous voyage rounded Cape Horn, touched at Honolulu and landed at San Francisco, then a town of only two hundred people.

It was there she met and married Mr. Ferguson. Her first child, Julia, now the wife of C. H. Brown, of Liberty, Idaho, was born in the Old Fort, now the Sixth Ward Square, in Salt Lake City. Mrs. Ferguson was a strong and vigorous minded woman, and endured all the hardships incident to the early times here in Utah with a light heart, having to the end the greatest faith in her religion, which enabled her to endure these hardships without a murmur. After her marriage Mrs. Ferguson made the trip from San Francisco to Salt Lake City on horseback. She died in this city in 1895.

Our subject was educated in the public schools of Lehi, and later in the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, from which institution he graduated in 188o. After his graduation he started out in Park City to make his own way in life, beginning by cutting cord wood, teaching school and anything that came to hand. He had always had a strong predilection for the study of the law, and all his spare time was devoted to study along this line. He was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court in 1886, and opened his office in Salt Lake City, practicing by himself and building up a fine business. About 1892 he formed a partnership with John M. Cannon under the firm name of Ferguson and Cannon, and this firm has rapidly come to the front as among the best practitioners in the State.

Mr. Ferguson was married in 1885 to Miss Rachel Tanner, daughter of Sidney Tanner and Rachel (Neyman) Tanner, who came to Utah in 1850. Five children have been born of this marriage, four of whom are living - Ratie Ferguson, James Barlow Ferguson, Blaine Ferguson and Keith Ferguson.

In politics Mr. Ferguson is a Republican and has been quite an active worker for his party. He held the office of County Attorney for Beaver county and was at one time Assistant City and County Attorney for Salt Lake county.

He is a member of the Mormon Church in which he is an Elder. He is at this time attorney for the Utah Sugar Company and Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, and also for the Bear River Water Company, the State Bank of Utah and the Salt Lake Theater.

In social life Mr. Ferguson numbers many warm friends, being possessed of most gentle­manly and unassuming manners, and is quite unspoiled by the honors that have come to him and which have been won by his own undaunted pluck, perseverance and splendid energy."

 Barlow Ferguson died on July 19, 1926.

"Biographical Record of Salt Lake City and Vicinity - Containing Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present", National Historical Record Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1902. Pages 111-112.

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org