Talk:John Ferrar

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Hello User:Alvanhholmes -

This article has several problems to resolve. There is choppy formatting, quotes, etc. to tidy up. However, as I start on that I find bigger problems.

It is in conflict with several existing articles and you are missing many important details.

There were two Virginia companies, Plymouth and London. It appears that he was part of the London Virginia Company and I fixed that.

John Ferrar (treasurer) stated date of birth and death are shown to be from 1544 to 1627. Under Nicholas Ferrar, John's d.o.d. is given as 1657 and Nicholas is 1592 - 1637. Either these men are not brothers or the dates are in error. Are these actually the dates for the other John Ferrar you are describing elsewhere?

Where was Ferrar living? Was he ever a Virginia resident and survivor, or is simply one of the wealthy London puppetmasters?

Troublesome article text
"April 23, 1619 John Ferrar was elected deputy treasurer ... see numerous examples in the 3,000 page “Ferrar Papers” of the Virginia Company.[3][4][5]:612[6]"
 * Sorry but "see numerous examples ..." is sloppy and needs to be replaced by specific examples. See the note further down.

"Following is a quote from the Fortnightly Club: ..."
 * I'm very confused by the paragraph that follows the above line. It has several quotations interwoven into one paragraph and I suspect that only parts of the paragraph is (are) a quote. Need to better distinguish what is what.

"John Ferrar as Deputy Treasurer of the Virginia Company and Nicholas Ferrar were instrumental in preserving the company and the second charter of the company[.] Chas. M Gayley states: 'These Men and their fellow patriots were already, by the charters of 1609, [and] 1618, the founders of representative government in Virginia, and by the 1620 Charter of 1620[,] of representative government in New England as well'.[1]:90"
 * Overlooking punctuation problems and a confusing listing of dates, Gayley's praise is pretty vague. Who all is Gayley praising?

"Little is known of this important man, other than in the numerous documents of the Virginia Company and the Ferrar papers".
 * If there are numerous documents, you are fortunate. That is the best most any researcher of 400 year old history can ask for. What specifically allows you to conclude that he is an important man? More importantly, are you the first person to make this claim? If so, that might be construed as original research and typically it would need vetting and publishing by a respected outside authority. This peer review process is what would elevate the level of research to being an acceptable source for WP.
 * This is the second mention of the Ferrar papers. Perhaps they are more important than John Ferrar. Has anyone written about them, other than casually like here? Are they curated somewhere?


 * The "important man" sentence is followed by a full paragraph quote from an encyclopedia. The content does not relate to the above sentence but rather to Samuel Argall. The quoted material needs to be rephrased in your own words. The dates seem to be in conflict with the WP article about Argall.

"This led to the formation of an administration under Lord Cavendish, John Ferrar, Nicholas Ferrar, Sir Edwin Sandys (died 1629), Treasurer and Earl of Southampton with unconstructive changes."
 * Huh? What does this mean? Please check the punctuation and compare it to the quoted text. Unconstructive changes? Is Sandys the treasurer and the Earl of Southhampton? Were Cavendish, Ferrar, Ferrar, and Sandys co-administrators?

OK, enough for now. I'm not convinced that john Ferrar is notable enough, you have to fill in some more details. A number of details - early family eg. overlap with Nicholas's biography.

Good luck GeeBee60 (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your assessment. I will take them a step at a time to correct. Too much to do all at once. Good call on the Dates of Birth and Death, this is evidence of how confusing the two John Ferrars can be. I deleted the Dates for John Ferrar, Deputy Treasurer, there is little known of hs personal life, all that is known of him is in the papers of the the Virginia Company, and the dates are actually those of John Ferrar, the elder of London, Esq.


 * As regards the Virginia Company. Before establishment of the Colony of Virginia in 1628, what we now call the United States was called Virginia, that is the area stretching from at least Massachusetts to the Carolinas was known as Virginia. As far as I can ascertain without further research, which I will undertake once these issues are resolved. The private enterprise, sanctioned by Charter of King James, was named the Virginia Company. I don't believe that it was called The Virginia Company of London, but came to be referred to by that appellation. There were three Charters, off the top of my head 1606, 1609 and 1612. When the so called Pilgrims wo were on their way to the James River Settlements (I am using the word settlement, but the whole is referred to as a Plantation in the Records of the company,use search word plantation inside the book at the link, see also the Ulster Plantation aka Northern Ireland.) ran out of potable liquid, beer, they hauled ashore at a place subsequently called Plymouth, Massachusetts, to replenish their supply and to obtain potable water. Beer then being, for it's alcoholic content, a substitute for fouled non potable water. They decided to stay, and thus the Virginia Company of London obtained a four charter, the charter of 1620.Page 515 https://archive.org/details/recordsofvirgini01virg_0/page/n549 refers to the Northern Plantation at Plymouth. That is there were not two London Companies, but one company called the Virginia Company with a Northern and a Southern Plantation.

A side note, much later, the Farrars were investors and overseers of the Ulster Plantation. Bu tno article on that either.


 * I did not want to go into this side trip, as it would require more research more references and more complaints. Basically there was the Virginia Company "of London", which received Four charters from King James. The first three for the James River settlements and the fourth for the Plymouth settlement.


 * This is probably the stuff of another article, and I am not up to it. It wold be akin to hitting my toe with a hammer or setting my hair on fire.


 * I will now undertake correcting the other items you mention and thanks a million. Your eyesight is keen and I am in awe of your attention to detailAlvanhholmes (talk) 16:54, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The WP articles on Virginia Company are pretty comprehensive, you might not need to write much, but you have to illuminate his VC contributions a bit more.
 * You want to show some dates for him even it is circa or florit.
 * Good luck GeeBee60 (talk) 17:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't even know where to start as to John Ferrars contributions to the Virginia Company, and thus to the soon to be colony. For instance page 60 of the introduction: https://archive.org/details/recordsofvirgini01virg_0/page/n121 says, (third paragraph) that Sir Edwin Sandys an dJohn Ferrar were the real managers of the company, and in that regards the absolute love that Sir Sandys had in John Ferrar and his brother (Nicholas) leaves no doubt as to who really ran the company. Sandys role was evidently that of politician and representative to the Crown. ON page 61 there is mention of John Ferrar annotating many letters referencing relations with the Indians, John Rolfe, Capt Argall etc.demonstrating the importance that he placed on them. Why would John Ferrar's importance be important, were it not for the fact that he was an important personage in the Company.

Yet the sole mentions of the Virginia Company are in reference to Nicholas Ferrar, who apparently did not play much of a role in the company. Except a brief mention of Nicholas "working" with Edwin Sandys.

As part of the faction that represented the company at Court. The equivalent being a lobbyist in the modern era. He deserves mention but the man that did the dirty work, the day to day management of the company, whose efforts along with his brother Nicholas Ferrar, prevented the dissolution of the Virginia Company. In May 1623 there were two factions of the Virginia Company, one of which Nicholas and John were on one side, sought to preserve the company, the other was comprised of influential investors which sought to dissolve the company. John and his brother Nicholas prevailed (to state the obvious) see pages 78-80 especially https://archive.org/details/recordsofvirgini01virg_0/page/n157Alvanhholmes (talk)
 * Apologies a 79 year old brain fart. I don't know why I confused you with Gråbergs Gråa Sång‬ }} I have no idea or excuse other than early onset stupidity.If I were to guess GeeBee60 is Brit andGråbergs Gråa Sång‬ is Swedish. My keyboard does not have the swedish accents and I can't remember keyboard codes. I wish they had a simply user name.[[User:Oldperson|Oldperson (talk) 03:28, 14 December 2018 (UTC)