John Bell Farris

He was the first born son of James Farris and Catherine Bell.

(Report of the Appraisers, translated-CKS) "Following the above mentioned instructions, we went from the town of New Madrid to the dwelling where the widowed Mrs. Shelby died, distant from the town about a league and a half (4 3/4 miles) with the gentlemen appraisers, assisting witnesses and Mr Richard Jones Waters, creditor, and having arrived there we met Mr James Ferris, being in the same house, who told us that he was the son of the first marriage of the deceased widow Shelby, whose name had been Catherine Bell and was formerly the widow of Mr James Ferris by whom she had three living children, the first boy named John, aged in the neighborhood of thirty, and the second named Humphrey, aged twenty-seven, both in the United States of America, and the third, James Ferris, aged twenty-five and living here in New Madrid. Also, she was secondly the widow of Mr David Shelby, by whom she had three children, the first named Rees, aged about eighteen, the second called Elie, aged around fifteen, and the third, a daughter named Mary, aged ten, and besides these Shelby had by his first marriage with Elizabeth Bala two living children, who are James Shelby, aged twenty-nine and dwelling in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States of America, and Elizabeth Shelby, aged about twenty-four and now wife of James Burns, living in the Bois Brule district of New Bourbon of the province of Louisiana and having requested the said Mr James Ferris to show us the property of the estate of the deceased widow."