London Ferrill
| London Ferrell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1789 Hanover County, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | October 12, 1854 (aged 64–65) Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Occupation | minister |
| Religion | Baptist |
London Ferrill, also spelled Ferrell, (1789–October 12, 1854) was a former slave and carpenter from Virginia who became the second preacher of the First African Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, serving from 1823 to 1854. During his 31 years of service, Ferrill attracted and baptized many new members in the growing region; by 1850 the church had 1,820 members and was the largest of any congregation in the state, black or white.
Of mixed race, Ferrill had been apprenticed as a carpenter when young. His wife, a free person of color, purchased his freedom and they moved to Kentucky by 1812. In Lexington, Ferrill was successful in working with both black and white leaders of the city, and became highly respected. The funeral procession for him numbered 5,000 people, the largest in the city after that of the white statesman Henry Clay. Ferrill led the first black church west of the Allegheny Mountains; it was the third oldest black Baptist congregation in the United States, and had been founded in 1790 by enslaved preacher Peter Durrett, also from Virginia.
London was born into slavery in 1789 in Hanover County, Virginia, where his enslaved mother was owned by Richard Ferrill, an English immigrant. The unmarried master died soon after. Ferrill's estate, including slaves, was inherited by his sister Ann (Ferrill) Winston. She named the mixed-race slave boy as London Ferrill after her brother, who was likely his father. As noted by Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family (1999), a study of the interracial relationships among his ancestors, mixed-race slaves were frequently given names that distinguished them from the others. London Ferrill is an example of such naming.
Ann Winston died when London Ferrill was eight or nine years old. When her estate was settled, London was sold away from his mother to Colonel Samuel Overton. Soon the master apprenticed Ferrill to learn carpentry, a skilled trade. This was often the pattern for children of white masters, to give them an artisan skill to enable them to support themselves as adults.
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