Charles Ferguson

performer

b. Rathkeale, Limerick, Ireland circa 1828
d. Goderich, Ontario, Canada Oct. 12, 1875

Ferguson's piping performances represent an approach which has not survived. His strength was "airs and slow music." Based on surviving evidence, he played mostly at concerts and recitals, and seldom if ever for dancers. At one point in his career he played picnics and church fairs with piper William Connolly in Brooklyn. Ferguson played music for reflection and Connolly played jigs and reels for the dancers.

This specialization harks back to an earlier era, pre-famine Ireland, before about 1845, when some players sought refined and cultivated audiences, and played popular music of the day as well as music associated with Ireland. Ferguson was presented as from a respectable family, "blind from infancy, but well educated, of pleasing address...." His blindness aroused sympathy, and evoked the blind minstrels - bards, even - of earlier days.

After the US Civil War [1861-65] the Irish audience changed and social conditions changed. Pipes and pipers became more associated with dancing and good times. A player who could not or would not produce driving dance music was less likely to find engagements. For whatever reasons, Ferguson seems to have stopped performing publicly around 1870.

As Sean Donnelly shows from his research, Ferguson, like many in show business, was prone to exaggeration and dissimulation in describing his achievements and background. He was born at Rathkeale, County Limerick about 1828. As mentioned above, an announcement for a concert says he was blind from infancy; he told W. A. Stephens of Ontario "that he lost his sight by cataract at the age of ten." He claimed, according to Francis O'Neill's informant Nicholas Burke, "to have learned most of his music from R. Rev. Dr. [Charles] Tuohy, who was Bishop of Limerick...." Tuohy died in 1828.

Ferguson supposedly played "around the prominent Dublin hotels" as a young man.

He emigrated to America by 1852. The earliest solid reference is to a Musical Entertainment and Ball, a benefit for him, in New York City March 10, 1852. In that year and perhaps earlier he played music for a moving panorama show about Ireland. Moving panorama shows were lectures, with a scroll of large paintings displayed as the lecturer discoursed. Often a piano player accompanied the lecture. It is not known if Ferguson accompanied the lecturer on pipes, but advertisements make it clear he had solo turns during the show.

He left the panorama show and spent almost a year in California, based in San Francisco, and was back in New York City by September 1853. Ferguson later claimed that he was on tour with Irish singer Catherine Hayes, a big star, at this time. There is no evidence to support this assertion.

Ferguson lived in Brooklyn for perhaps ten years thereafter, touring and playing at concerts. He was often the star of the concert, singing and playing his Irish Union Harmonic Pipes. He was assisted by other musicians, with pianists and singers being most often mentioned in the advertisements. Some indication of his skill, even power, as a performer can be seen in a review of a concert in Janesville, Wisconsin, May 20, 1857:

The far famed and deservedly admired "Ferguson"-the "Prince of Pipers," delighted and astonished a Janesville audience on Wednesday evening last. We say astonished, because few could have supposed it possible to discourse such brilliant and touching strains on an instrument so little known in this country, and of such humble pretensions, but which, in the hands of a master like Ferguson, were not only beautiful and thrilling, but absolutely magical. His splendid instrument (a small and large one) appearing, at times to act like an automaton or spiritualist, than if moved by human fingers.

These pipes are a triumph of musical art, and combine the simplicity of the native Irish and Scotch, with the stains of the Organ, softened down to the plaintive and sweet tones of the Flute and Flageolet.

His songs, "Annie Laurie," "Motherlie is going away," and the Burlesque of the Italian Opera, were admirably executed, the latter being tastefully accompanied on the Piano Forte, were in themselves sufficient attraction. But the "Gems" of the Concert were decidedly, the "Coolies," "The Fox Chase," "The Last Rose of Summer," and the Medley of Nigger Melodies, concluding with Pop Goes the Weasel, magnificently performed on the Pipes with a grace and feeling in which he seemed to blow[?] his whole soul, in a manner so fascinating as to rivet the undivided attention, and reach the hearts of all present.

Some time after his return from San Francisco Ferguson ordered an elaborate set of pipes from pipemaker Michael Egan of Manhattan. "The Great Irish Pipe / With Double bass regulator and 27 keys." Made of ebony, ivory and brass. Ferguson claimed that the set was presented to him by Queen Victoria. This did not sit well with Egan.

Ferguson lived in Brooklyn at least until 1861. After that year mention of him in newspapers falls off. Francis O'Neill has it that "he married a wealthy old lady in Brooklyn, who professed a great desire to take care of him, and no doubt she did, for he dropped out of view completely thereafter." He did marry, or was already married, but the rest of the statement is unverifiable or wrong.

He moved to Canada, probably by 1869. In that year the Toronto Daily Globe published his obituary and it was reprinted in a few newspapers. The obituary gives his residence as St. Catherines, a city in southern Ontario, not far from the United States border and Niagara Falls. This information may be viewed with suspicion, since Ferguson died in 1875.

In any case, subsequent references to Ferguson are from Canada. W. A. Stephens saw him at a concert at Owen Sound, Ontario in 1870. He noted that Ferguson was in the company of his brother, who apparently acted as manager or assistant. Stephens later spoke with Ferguson, who told him that "if he could continue steadily to travel and play, he could make his fortune, but the work is so exhausting that he has always to lie by after an effort of a few weeks."

The Canada Census for 1871 lists Charles Furguson, age 41, musician, blind, living at Goderich, Ontario. Goderich is a town on the shores of Lake Huron in southwest Ontario. Living with him were his wife Eliza, age 47, born in Portugal; Michael Furguson, age 36 and Mary Furguson, age 36. Perhaps Michael was his brother.

Ferguson died at Goderich October 12, 1875 of "congestion of the lungs." He was buried at the Catholic Cemetery of Goderich.

Selected References

'The Blind Piper and W. A. Stephens From the Owen Sound "Times" ' in Stephens, W[illiam]. A. Hamilton: and other poems and lectures Toronto, Ont. A. Lovell, 2nd ed. 1871 pp. 336-8

"Death of Chas. Ferguson, the Celebrated Irish Piper." NY Irish-American May 1, 1869 p. 5 column 3
GenealogyBank.com

Donnelly, Sean "Tall Tales from a Blind Piper Charles Ferguson in the United States and Canada" [Quotations from W. A. Stephens are found here.] An Píobaire vol. 5 no. 2 April 2009 pp. 20-25
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1014&mediaId=26036

Ferguson obituary Toronto ON Daily Globe Oct. 18, 1875 p. 2 column 7
ProQuest Historical Newspapers

"Grand Musical Entertainment and Ball" New York Herald March 9, 1852 p. 1 column 2
New York NY Herald 1852 - 0389.pdf

"☞ Ireland, her scenery and music" [Announcement for moving panorama show.] Newark [NJ] Daily Advertiser May 29, 1852 p. 2 column 4
GenealogyBank.com

"Mr. Ferguson, the Prince of Pipers" [Reprints the Janesville, WI concert review.] Racine [WI] Democrat June 15, 1857 p. 3 column 1
Newspaperarchive.com

O'Neill, Francis Irish Minstrels and Musicians Chicago 1913 pp. 222-23

Nick Whitmer
July 2018 additions Nov. 2018