FERRIS, ISAAC: American (Dutch) Reformed; b. in New York Oct. 9, 1799; d. at Roselle, N. J., June 16, 1873. He was graduated from Columbia College (1816) and the Rutgers Seminary (1820). He held pastorates in the Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick, N. J. (1821-24), Albany, N. Y. (1824-36), and the Market Street Church, New York (1836-53), and was president of the New York Sunday School Union (1837-73), also of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1842 he was sent to Holland on behalf of American missionaries in the Dutch East Indies. He was chancellor of New York University (1852-70; emeritus 1870-73), and throughout his connection with the University he was professor of moral science and Christian evidences, also acting professor of constitutional and international law 1855-1869. Through his efforts the heavy debt under which the institution had labored since its foundation was removed, several new departments were added to the course of instruction, and the standard of scholarship materially raised. He was also principal of the Rutgers Female Institute and president of its board of trustees. He published numerous occasional sermons and addresses, including Jubilee Memorial of the American Bible Society; being a Review of its First Fifty Years of Work (New York, 1867), an address delivered at the Jubilee of the American Bible Society at New York in 1866.