The site was occupied in 1851 by the Ephraim Andrews family and their in-laws, the McKnights, who settled a purchased land grant, and the Duffs, Greens, McDaniels, and Orrs also pioneered there. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was founded in 1858. In 1874, the Andrews family deeded a 100-acre townsite, named for Judge J.W. Ferris (1823-99), to the Houston & Texas Central Railway. The post office opened on June 22, 1874, in the store of the first postmaster, Jackson J. Straw. The first cotton gin opened in 1880, and the first newspaper appeared in 1889. The Ferris Institute operated from 1892 to 1907, and the city has been a brick-making center since 1895.