This collections contains the papers and photographs collected by Evelyn Pike Ferris during the nearly 60 years that she lived in Greenwich. They reflect Evelyn's keen interest in maintaining the history of her family and community and primarily related to her husband's branch of the Ferris family in early Greenwich history, and to the several community organizations in Greenwhich that she was deeply involved in.
The family records relate to several ancestors of Edgar Ferris, Evelyn's husband, who had lived in Greenwich. These include Samuel Ferris and his sons Samuel Jr., Joseph, and Jeduthan, landowners along the Mianus river and beyond in the 1700s; Stephen Waring, a trading ship captain operating out of Cos Cob harbor, and his brother James Waring who served as a Justice of the Peace and tax assessor in the 1800s; and May Munson Ferris, Edgar's mother who, at the age of 17, traveled to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago to demonstrate a typewriter manufactured by her employer and who documented the experience in extensive letters to her family.
The papers relating to community organizations include records, newsletters, and photographs of the Community Cooperative Nursery school, also known as the Cottage School where Evelyn was the director for nearly 40 years; the Shorelands neighborhood of Old Greenwich where she lived; the Greenwich Choral Society where she was a member for nearly 50 years; the Greenwich Public School System during the ten year planning phase for building the high school on Hillside Road; the Greenwich Historical Society where she was a docent, Vice-President, and Secretary; and the First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich, which she attended for most of her adult life.
