John Howard Ferguson

Who was John Howard Ferguson?

John Howard Ferguson was an American lawyer and judge from Louisiana, most famous as the defendant in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. Ferguson was born the third and last child to baptist parents on June 10, 1838 in Chilmark, Massachusetts. The son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-grandson of Martha's Vineyard Master Mariners, John Howard Ferguson chose a different vocational path and taught school in his early years, finally setting about to study law. Young Ferguson's family was all but wiped out between 1849–1861, and after the Civil War ended, and he had completed his legal studies in Boston under the tutelage of Benjamin F. Hallett, Ferguson moved to New Orleans in 1865. There he met and married in July 1866, Virginia Butler Earhart, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Earhart, a staunch and outspoken abolitionist from Pennsylvania. The Fergusons raised three sons in Burtheville at 1500 Henry Clay Avenue. The house still stands today and is designated a historical landmark of the 1989 Orleans Parish Landmarks Commission.

Ferguson served in the Louisiana Legislature and practiced law in New Orleans until he was tapped in 1892 for a judgeship at the criminal district court, Section A, for the Parish of New Orleans, Louisiana. There he presided over the case Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana. The case was brought by Homer Plessy and eventually led to the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the United States Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation.