Two hundred years ago today Joseph McFerron Jr. died near Jackson in Cape Girardeau County at the young age of 41. Born in Ireland in 1780, McFerron’s parents and family immigrated to America in 1795 and settled in Pennsylvania. Joseph came to Missouri in about 1806, where he taught at Mt. Tabor School.
The first recognition of his talents was appointment as the first area postmaster in 1806. Appointment as courts clerk followed—positions he held for much of the rest of his life. He moved to the new county seat of Jackson as one of five trustees in 1808.
A more dubious distinction was his participation in a duel with businessman William Ogle in 1807. McFerron apparently cast aspersions on Ogle’s wife, and the resulting disagreement ended with McFerron challenging Ogle. The duel on Cypress Island opposite Cape Girardeau ended with McFerron wounded in the thigh and Ogle killed by a head wound. McFerron resigned his office, but the citizenry insisted he continue.
A surviving description is of a man of “…unprepossessing appearance, his face bearing a hard and stolid expression, eyes overhung by long projecting eyebrows; in manner he was apparently very reserved, but on acquaintance genial and pleasant.”
McFerron became a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention, and afterward a representative to the first General Assembly. He resigned in November 1820, possibly due to illness. Alexander Buckner wrote of McFerron, “…in McFerron’s grave is buried the Statesman, the Lawyer, the Clerk, the Philosopher, the Poet, the accomplished Scholar, and the virtuous man.”
McFerron wed Eve Tyler, a ward of Col. Christopher Hays, and left his widow and six children. These children have left hundreds of descendants, and the McFerron name is still one widely recognized across southeast Missouri.
