Silent Wierdness: Born Today June 8: William J. Ferguson

Monday, June 8, 2020

Born Today June 8: William J. Ferguson

1845-1930

Actor, primarily of the stage, William J. (Jason) Ferguson (W.J.) was born on this day in Baltimore, Maryland. He died the year that sound pictures became the mainstay of cinemas nationwide, which puts his film career completely within the silent era. But his film career aside, it is his stage acting that he is most remembered for today. That is because he was a cast member of the play Our American Cousin in Washington D.C. when our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, was fatally shot at the Ford Theater on the 14 of April in 1865. At his death at 84, he was, in fact, the last surviving cast member of that production. He was just 20 years old at the time of the assassination. For an actor of that era, Ferguson made his film debut relatively late considering how long he had been acting. He was given the role of "servant" in the IMP produced/Universal distributed short melodrama His Last Chance in 1914. In all, Ferguson made at least 16 film appearances at the end of his long career and he worked well into old age. While he worked with several film directors who were well known at the time (Frank Hall Crane, J. Stuart Blackton, James Young among them), it wasn't until 1921 when he appeared in Dream Street, directed by D. W. Griffth, that his role in a film is known to have survived and was directed by a name that is well remembered today. His last film appearance came in the George Fitzmaurice directed "historical romance" To Have and to Hold in 1922 (the film sports a ridiculous plot based on the Jamestown colony in Virginia that in no way bears any relation to actual history). Ferguson then retired back to his home state of Maryland; he was 77. He passed away in Pikesville, Md. on the 3rd of May, 1930--just about a month away from his 85th birthday. After extensive searching, I can find no information as to his burial.