Finlay Forbes Ferguson Jr. Photograph Collection

Dublin Core

Title

Subject

Architecture, Domestic - Virginia - Williamsburg

Public buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg

Historic buildings - Virginia - Williamsburg

Williamsburg (Va.) - Photographs

Williamsburg (Va.) - Buildings, structures, etc.

Description

The son of Norfolk architect Finlay Forbes Ferguson Sr., who served as an Advisory Architect in the late 1920s as Williamsburg’s restoration began, Finlay Ferguson Jr. contributed to two different periods of architectural projects at Colonial Williamsburg. A graduate of the University of Virginia’s architecture program, Finlay Jr. started the first phase of his career working as a draftsman at Colonial Williamsburg between 1930-1933. He assisted other members of the research and design team with preparation of conjectural sketches, preliminary elevations and floor plans, and final measured drawings. Finlay left Williamsburg to work in his father’s architectural firm, Peebles and Ferguson, on the restoration of Fort Macon in Moorehead City, North Carolina between 1934-1935. He continued his association with the Norfolk firm until 1939, when he returned to Colonial Williamsburg to work on research and design for the restoration of Bruton Parish Church until 1943. After serving in the Navy during the remainder of World War II, Ferguson resumed practicing architecture in Norfolk. His early association with Colonial Williamsburg allowed him to become a respected expert in architectural restoration and he oversaw projects at the Adam Thoroughgood House, the Moses Myers House, the Willoughby-Baylor House, and the Old Norfolk Academy. Ferguson also designed the General Douglas MacArthur Memorial and restored St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Edenton, North Carolina.

Ferguson joined his architectural colleagues in taking numerous photographs of both ongoing work in the Historic Area and field research at other sites. These are preserved in the Finlay Forbes Ferguson Jr. Photograph Collection, AV2009.16, which encompasses over four hundred black and white images of restoration projects underway in Williamsburg’s Historic Area, as well as architectural design precedents at historic sites in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina used to facilitate reconstruction of details not documented in historical records, archaeological investigations, or visual representations.