Born in Belfast, Ireland; baptized in Liverpool, England, in 1842, where he and GQC were members of the Bold Street choir; immigrated to the U.S. in 1846 and enlisted in Mormon Battalion; left California for Salt Lake Valley in 1848; served as sheriff of Salt Lake County, Utah Territory’s first attorney general, adjutant general of territorial militia, and member of territorial legislature; gifted orator and actor of some note, delivered July 4, 1853, discourse in Salt Lake City; served mission to Ireland, 1854–56; died in Salt Lake City. (See Jenson, BE, 4:743; Whitney, History of Utah, 4:180–83; Gardner, Pioneer Military Leaders of Utah, 26–27; Bagley, Bright, Rising Star; McGee, “Preliminary History of the Irish in Utah Territory,” 92–97; Larson, Database of the Mormon Battalion, 95; Ricketts, Mormon Battalion, 362; “Death of Gen. Ferguson,” Deseret News Weekly, Sept. 2, 1863; GQC journal, Apr. 19, July 11, 1851; Sept. 23, 1853; June 18, July 13, 1854.)