Still another leader in the Laughery Association of whom special mention should be made was the Rev. Ezra Ferris, M. D. He was born in Connecticut in 1783, and came with his father to Ohio in 1789, and found a home in Columbia, the first town to be founded in the Miami Valley. He joined the Baptist church there in 1801. In 1807 he came to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and was one of the first Baptist ministers to preach in that part of the State. He was a leader in the organization of the Lawrenceburg church, and was its pastor for more than thirty years. He was also a practicing physician, having gone back to the east, in his early manhood, to complete a course in medicine. He was selected as a member of the Constitutional Convention of Indiana held at Corydon in 1816; and was several times sent to the state legislature. He was once nominated for congress but failed by five votes, of being elected. It is said that on one occasion when the followers of Alexander Campbell were arranging for a meeting in Lawrenceburg, with the purpose of proselyting as many members of other churches as possible, Elder Ferris fore-stalled the movement somewhat, by being on hand early, opening the meeting, and in the opening using the hymn, the first stanza of which is:

			Jesus, great Shepherd of the sheep
			To thee for help we fly,
			The little flock in safety keep,
			For oh, the wolf is nigh.

      One of the most satisfactory accounts of the Indian campaigns of Generals Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne, 1791-94, was written by Elder Ferris for a Lawrenceburg paper. He died at his home in Lawrenceburg April 19th, 1857.

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[From W. T. Stott, Indiana Baptist History, 1908, pp. 103-104. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]

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