Henry G. Ferguson

Henry Gardiner Ferguson (January 21, 1882 – November 29, 1966) was an American geologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). He worked primarily in Nevada and was a pioneer in the geology of the central Great Basin, producing many publications, including multiple USGS geological maps of central Nevada. Ferguson was a lifelong friend and colleague of Levi Noble,

Early life Henry Ferguson was born on January 21, 1882, in San Rafael, California, the son of Emma Jane (Gardiner) and Henry Ferguson. Shortly thereafter his family moved to the East Coast and Ferguson earned a BA, a BS, and an MA (1906) from Harvard University. Post-graduation geological jobs in Michigan and the Philippines inspired him to do graduate study in geology at Yale University. Although his PhD requirements were finished by 1912, he did not receive his actual degree until an informal oral exam in 1924, with his 1924 USGS bulletin on the Manhattan mining district in Nevada being accepted as his dissertation.

Ferguson was also a lifelong friend and confidant of Levi Noble. According to Wright and Troxel (2002, p. 26), ] grew out of his conversations with Ferguson."

Ferguson made one of the earliest reports of Paleozoic deformation in Nevada in his 1924 bulletin on the Manhattan district. In 1939, Ralph Roberts, on one of his first assignments as a USGS employee, joined senior geologists Ferguson and Siemon Muller on a project mapping the Sonoma Range in Nevada. Roberts' work in the Battle Mountain/Antler Peak area of Nevada, done partially with Ferguson's mentorship and funding assistance, demonstrated that the Paleozoic deformation was a full scale orogeny; this was later described as the Antler orogeny in Roberts' 1949 Yale PhD dissertation. this included a heavy-mineral sand analysis by Ferguson that contributed to the identification of the source location of the Japanese balloon bombs. Ferguson was also intermittently head of the USGS Metals division.

Mount Ferguson, a mountain in the Gabbs Range in Nevada, east of Walker Lake, was named for Henry Ferguson.

Personal life In 1914, Henry married Alice Lowe, a Washington socialite, painter and avid amateur archeologist. Following the wedding, they went on a year-long honeymoon in South America, and then settled into a house in NW Washington, D.C. Over time, the Fergusons continued to purchase neighboring rural land, and the area grew and developed into a community known as the Moyaone Reserve.

Alice died in 1951, but Henry continued to live at Hard Bargain and was active in the community until his death in 1966. In 1954, he established the non-profit Alice Ferguson Foundation in his wife's memory; the foundation remains very active in environmental education and is based at Hard Bargain. In 1957, Ferguson was one of the founders of the Accokeek Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving the "natural beauty along the Maryland shore of the historic Potomac River." In 1953, he donated money to open the first Accokeek public library, and in the late 1960s, the Henry G. Ferguson Elementary School in Accokeek (now closed) was named after him.

Henry was known by friends, professional colleagues, and community members as "Fergie." In the 1950s and early 1960s, Fergie would deliver eggs around the Moyaone Reserve neighborhood while driving his old wood-paneled Ford station wagon, with neighborhood children hanging onto the sides.

Henry Ferguson died in Washington, D.C., on November 29, 1966.

Selected publications (See Nolan, 1966, for a more complete list of publications, although Ferguson's early work on Iceland and the Philippines is not included).

Ferguson, HG. 1906. Tertiary and Recent Glaciation of an Icelandic Valley, Journal of Geology, v 14, #2, pp 122–133. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30055594.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1914. Gold Lodes of the Weaverville Quadrangle, California, US Geological Survey Bulletin #540, pp 22–79. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0540a/report.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1914. Lode Deposits of the Alleghany District, California, US Geological Survey Bulletin #580, pp 153–182. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0580i/report.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1916. The Golden Arrow, Clifford, and Ellendale Districts, Nye County, Nevada, US Geological Survey Bulletin #640, pp 113–123. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0640f/report.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1921. The Mogollon District, New Mexico. US Geological Survey Bulletin #715, pp 171–204. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0715l/report.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1921. The Round Mountain District, Nevada, US Geological Survey Bulletin #725, pp 383–406. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0725i/report.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1924. Geology and Ore Deposits of the Manhattan District, Nevada. US Geological Survey Bulletin #723. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0723/report.pdf Ferguson, HG. 1929/1944. The Mining Districts of Nevada. Economic Geology, v 24, #2; reprinted in 1944 as University of Nevada Bulletin, Vol XXXVII, #4. ftp://dataworks.library.unr.edu/keck/mining/Bulletin40/b40.pdf Ferguson, HG, and Gannett, RW. 1932. Gold Quartz Veins of the Alleghany District, California, US Geological Survey Professional Paper 172. https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0172/report.pdf Muller, SW, and Ferguson, HG. 1936. Triassic and Jurassic Formations of West-Central Nevada, Geological Society of America Bulletin, v 47, #2, pp 241–251. Muller, SW, and Ferguson, HG. 1939. Mesozoic Stratigraphy of the Hawthorne and Tonopah Quadrangles, Nevada, Geological Society of American Bulletin, v 50, #10, pp 1573–1624. Ferguson, HG, and Muller, SW. 1949. Structural Geology of the Hawthorne and Tonopah Quadrangles, Nevada. US Geological Survey Professional Paper #216. https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0216/report.pdf Ferguson, HG, Roberts, RJ, and Muller, SW. 1951. Geology of the Winnemucca Quadrangle, Nevada. US Geological Survey Quadrangle Map GQ11. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_554.htm Ferguson, HG, Muller, SW, and Roberts, RJ. 1951. Geology of the Golconda Quadrangle, Nevada. US Geological Survey Quadrangle Map GQ15. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_598.htm Roberts, RJ, Hotz, PE, Gilluly, J, and Ferguson, HG. 1958. Paleozoic Rocks of North-Central Nevada. AAPG Bulletin, v 42, #12, pp 2813–2857. Ferguson, AL, and Ferguson, HG. 1960 (reprinted in 1980). The Piscataway Indians of Southern Maryland. Alice Ferguson Foundation, Accokeek, MD. (Henry Ferguson's posthumous revision of an earlier manuscript by Alice.) Ferguson, HG. 1966. Hard Bargain Adventures. Alice Ferguson Foundation, Accokeek, MD.