Ferguson was born the third and last child to Baptist parents (John H. Ferguson & Sarah Davis Luce) on June 10, 1838, in
Chilmark, Massachusetts. The son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-grandson of Martha's Vineyard (Chimark & Tisbury) Master Mariners, John Howard Ferguson chose a different vocational path and taught school in his early years, finally setting about to study law. Young Ferguson's family was all but wiped out between 1849 and 1861, and after the Civil War ended, and he had completed his legal studies in Boston under the tutelage of
Benjamin F. Hallett, Ferguson moved to New Orleans in 1865. There he met and married in July 1866, Virginia Butler Earhart, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Earhart, a staunch and outspoken abolitionist from Pennsylvania. The Fergusons raised three sons (Walter Judson, Milo & Donald Ferguson) in Burtheville (Uptown New Orleans) at 1500 Henry Clay Avenue. The house still stands today and is designated a historical landmark of the 1989
Orleans Parish Landmarks Commission. Ferguson served in the Louisiana Legislature and practiced law in New Orleans until he was tapped in 1892 for a judgeship at the criminal district court, Section A, for the Parish of New Orleans, Louisiana. There he presided over the case
Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana. The case was brought by
Homer Plessy and eventually led to the infamous
Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the
United States Supreme Court upholding the
constitutionality of
racial segregation. Judge Ferguson had previously ruled that the Louisiana Railway Car Act of 1890 (The
Separate Car Act), a law declaring that
Louisiana rail companies had to provide
separate but equal accommodations for white and non-white passengers, was
"unconstitutional on trains that travelled through several states" on Equal Protection grounds under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution grounds. In Plessy's case, however, he concluded that the state could choose to regulate railroad companies that operated solely within the state of Louisiana and declared the Separate Car Act to be constitutional in intrastate cases. Plessy then appealed the case to the
Louisiana Supreme Court, which affirmed the decision that the Louisiana law was constitutional. Plessy petitioned for a
writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States where Judge John Howard Ferguson was named in the case brought before the
United States Supreme Court because he had been named in the petition to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Judge John Howard Ferguson died in New Orleans at the age of 77 on November 12, 1915. That same year, both his son Walter Judson Ferguson in the month of June, and his wife, Virginia Butler Earhart Ferguson, in the month of September, pre-deceased him. He is buried with his wife and other Earhart family members in
Lafayette Cemetery # 1 in the old part of New Orleans. (Authored & Extensively Researched by John H. Ferguson IV, Great, Great Grandson). ==Plessy and Ferguson Foundation==