Ferguson was born free and of mixed-race ancestry in February 1810, probably in Richmond. His parents’ names are not recorded. Ferguson learned the barbering trade, probably by beginning as a porter boy, whose duties usually included shining shoes and making lather. On April 7, 1831, in Henrico County, he married Harriet F. Crump, a free woman of color. Both had learned to read and write and signed their names on legal documents. They resided in Richmond’s Jefferson Ward and had three sons and three daughters before her death on January 9, 1854.
Early in the 1850s Ferguson was one of more than a dozen free black barbers working in Richmond, a profession that placed him among the elite of free black society in the city. He owned three slaves by the time he reached age twenty-two, and throughout his life he held several slaves who worked probably in his barbershop or as domestics. In addition to shaving clients and cutting and dressing hair, antebellum barbers performed simple med