You’ve never met these people, you’ve never seen their house… but it’s possible you may have walked up their front steps.
At Malabar Farm State Park there is a high and secluded meadow with forested hills known as Up Ferguson Way. That name has stayed with the place ever since 1819 when the first Ferguson received a land grant signed by President Monroe; even long after there were no more Fergusons there.
To find it today you have to hike up the dirt lane that leads past the Pugh Cabin and the Sugar Camp, up to the top of the hill where the road fades away into a tractor trail. The old original roadbed is still evident running next to the modern trail, filled with brambles and briars, and sunken five feet into the ground from many generations of erosion and horse-drawn traffic over the hill.
Back when there were farm wagons and carriages rolling over the road to Newville every day, the Ferguson’s home stood just a few dozen feet away from the deeply rutted country lane. It has all changed a great deal since those days — the pastures and crop fields from then now have grown to woodlots, and the house is long, long gone — and it is likely that even the Fergusons wouldn’t know the place today… until they saw the one clear remnant of their world that can still be seen among the wildflowers: their front steps.
For more background on this site check out Up Ferguson Way: in history, literature and spirit
